Page 13 of Operation: Chosen

Ali held her breath. Eric would want to know all of this, but not from her. He might accuse her of lying to get to talk to him. Who could she tell who would get the word to Eric? The only possibility was Lacy. She got the feeling the woman didn’t like her, but Ali had little choice.

“Not sure, but at least two besides Clayton. They’ll want to make sure they can get the one of us out of here who made it and make sure no one else who saw their faces can ever tell anyone.” Big E’s young voice trembled.

When Ali looked at them, she couldn’t sense a hint of fear. Anyone looking on would have assumed they were talking about the weather or the latest baseball score. But as soon as she backed fully around the corner and could only hear them, the fear came out. Their voices gave their true feelings away.

“Terrell, if you say a word, even one word, to that cowboy you’ve been talking to, I will personally drown you in the toilet,” Jayzon whispered.

The third boy answered quickly. “We don’t talk. I make fun of how old he is. I won’t say a word. I know you both have counted me out, but I’m in. I won’t end up in some ditch.”

Big E snorted. “That’s pretty Hollywood. They won’t even bother moving you. Once you’re gone, you’re not worth thinking about. I would bet they’ve already decided which of us gets in. It’s only a matter of time. Might mean I’m in if Bones is the one who comes.”

Ali took a few steps back slowly to keep her feet from making any noise. She couldn’t happen to walk by them now or they might realize she’d been standing there longer than she should. If they thought about the fact that they’d only heard a few steps, they’d know she’d been listening. If they were so callously talking about their own deaths, they could quickly dispatch her without a second thought to keep their secrets safe.

Moving slowly, she heard them shuffling at the other end of the house. She turned and bolted around the corner, flattening herself against the wall. The boys tromped onto the small porch in front of the house, the other way around. Ali took a deep breath, but her escape wasn’t over. She was pinned there because they could still see her walking away. All of their window blinds were open, probably so they could see anyone coming for them. Even running the way she’d come would give her position away.

Everything around seemed far too wide-open now. In the city, she could’ve made a run for the nearest building and dashed around a corner and out of sight. Out here, there was at least thirty yards between the cabins and the nearest barn. Why couldn’t anything be closer together? Did all these cowboys like to walk far to get anywhere?

Ali pressed her palms to the siding of the little cabin, hoping to feel the slight vibration of footsteps within. If she could guess how far away they were based on how hard the vibrations were, she might be able to make a run for safety, but first she’d have to crawl under their windows so they didn’t see her.

She glanced down at the rocky path and held in a groan. Her knees would be a scraped-up mess by the time she was clear of the windows. Eyeing the porch, she had an idea. If she could get on the roof, she could slowly walk across and climb down silently.

Basic training was many years behind her, but she’d remained in good physical health. Shimmying up the porch support shouldn’t be a big problem. She stuck her foot between the rails of the porch surround and climbed up on the railing. From there, she slowly stood, trying to avoid any line of sight from the front windows or making the wood creak under her.

Her foot caught between the rails and she held her breath as she wiggled free. Finally able to stand, she glanced up at the remaining distance. From the railing, the roof came to about her chest. She’d done lifts before, but usually with a bar, not scratchy shingles. However, if her male counterparts could do it, so could she.

She braced her palms to absorb the pressure, pushed off with her toes and caught her weight with her elbows, then slowly straightened them to bring the roofline to her waist. Once steady, she flung her knee over the edge and slowly crawled onto the roof.

Now that she was up, she only had to get across slowly and quietly enough that she could avoid detection from the boys inside. Even if they didn’t try to kill her themselves, the men who were coming for them would want to get rid of her. She knew one of their names now, both real and nickname.

After a painstakingly slow crawl across the roof, Ali climbed down the other side and held close to the house to catch her breath. If the boys saw her on this side, where they’d been talking, they might assume she’d come from the other direction. But that was exactly the direction she needed to go to talk to Lacy.

Her mind kicked in, thinking of every option and every escape. She recalled that Lacy had an office down in one of these cabins, but which one? The door to the next cabin opened up and Lacy came out, balancing a cardboard storage box on her arm.

“Hey, let me help you with that.” The perfect excuse to be in the area. Hopefully Lacy hadn’t seen her crawl across her neighbor’s roof. At least she’d been out of sight while listening to the boys talk. “You look like you’re off to go somewhere, but I wanted a minute to talk with you.” She hoped she got the urgency across in her voice.

“Oh, sure. What I had to do can wait. Come on inside.” She opened the door back up and held it for Ali. “What’s the matter?”

Ali set the heavy box on a small sofa and brushed the asphalt from the shingles off her hands. “I think we need to talk about those boys. I just heard something that might change how welcome they are here.”

ChapterSix

Ali took a deep breath and let it out as she pulled her car to a stop by the front lodge in the Wayside lot. Piper’s Ridge had little shops just like Teddy had mentioned, but no clothing had looked suitable. She was not a flannel or tee kind of girl. She’d worn enough tees when she’d done her time in the army and she’d hated wearing them then.

At the end of her tolerance, she’d finally chosen a couple flowy peasant tops and a pair of linen palazzo pants to replace her yoga pants from a low-quality big box store. If they didn’t last, that was fine. She only needed them for a short time. She’d discovered halfway through her trip into Piper’s Ridge that her poor yoga pants had sustained injuries to the knees. Now she’d only have her capri leggings for working out.

Lacy and Connor left the lodge, obviously in conversation with one another. She’d told Lacy all about what the boys had said, and Lacy had promised to tell Connor about what she’d heard. Connor would then talk to Edwyn and make a plan to tell everyone else. Notifying Lacy had felt right, but letting it go didn’t. She still wanted to make sure Eric knew about the threat since he was working with the boys. What if Eric was with them when these gang members arrived?

Ali’s chest ached, just as it had for so many years when she thought about Eric. He was all that was missing from her life. Her husband had cared about her success—though not about her—right up until the point when she’d started to age. Then, just like everyone else she’d needed to care for her, he’d changed. He’d no longer appreciated her success or her career. He’d wanted a newer, younger model.

Connor opened the gate to the corral for Lacy, and her laughter caught on the breeze at something he’d said. She and Eric had been like that at one point. Ali grabbed her small bag of clothes from the store she usually avoided and headed for her cabin. As much as she hated the tiny house, at least she could be alone with her thoughts there.

More laughter reached her, and Ali picked up the pace, trying to keep her sights on the path to her front door, not the divorced couple ahead of her that were obviously closer than most separated spouses. Absolutely closer than she was to hers. She wondered what made them so close, but her own history was painful enough that she would never ask people about theirs. Why force people to share pain if they didn’t want to?

Her memory was far too clear for her own good, and a date long ago with Eric came to mind. He’d come over to pick her up in his old truck. Since she’d never wanted him to really know her aunt and uncle, she’d always run out of the house to meet him. She hadn’t thought about it, but now she wondered if he’d gone to talk to her uncle before he’d proposed. If he had, he might know just how bad her life had been for so long.

Then again, Uncle Cliff was a completely different person in front of strangers.

She’d climbed into Eric’s truck and had buckled herself in. Eric had handed her a bottle of raspberry iced tea—her favorite—and given her that smile he reserved just for her. “How’s my girl?” he asked.

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