Megan Franchino knows her chance for escape is now or never. With school finally out for her son Antonio, and her abusive husband going out of town she just might get far enough away before he starts looking for them. If they fail to get away, Megan knows she will not live to regret trying. There is no choice though, their recent injuries prove that if they stay one or both of them will eventually die from the beatings.

There is only one place she might feel safe to go, but will she be welcome there? Can she even get there? How long can she stay? What then? And if her husband's family does catch up to them, is there any way to keep Tony safe?

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The Legal Stuff: Dollar Runaways © 2014 By Tiffany Shar
 
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2014 By Tiffany Shar. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.
 
 
Preface

Like the first four books I posted here on BigCloset, I will be posting a full copy here on BigCloset. I was planning to post it a chapter at a time, but due to some real life events that took place in the last week I am doing two per week instead so it’ll be completely posted before I get too busy with other things! The book has a total of 26 chapters and a short epilogue. The full version should be completely posted by early March. For those that cannot wait however, I have an e-book version of the full book available from Lulu.com as of today. You may find it at My Store. My assumption is that the majority of my readers would be more interested in this edition of the book rather than a hardback or paperback. There are two types of eBooks available depending on how you wish to read it. One is the ePub format that you should be able to load on any e-reader (you may need an additional app, but I believe all will read it), and the other is a standard PDF formatted file. I believe the PDF is the best way to read it on a computer screen personally. If you enjoy this work perhaps you will consider supporting me by purchasing it ($5.95 for the eBook formatted files).

Several readers have commented on the similarities of the story to Wanda Cunningham’s ‘Incognito Parallel.’ I would reference you all to the ‘Dedication’ in the first chapter where I recognize that her tale most definitely sparked my imagination, and this book! I believe you will find that in the end though this work is its own story.

One caution before continuing through this book; it is darker than my past novels have been. If it were a movie it would probably be rated R for Language and Violence. Much of this novel is just as light as you are used to seeing from me though!

Thanks again for reading, and I hope you enjoy reading Dollar Runaways!!

 
Chapter 23: Revelations
 
AGENT KLINE WOKE up and drove to the office that morning with a very determined mind to solve where Megan had landed. He was down to three vehicles and on the second one he suddenly recognized a name, Amber Marie Caffrey, Age 23.

He felt a sudden jolt and tried to remember where he remembered that name. As soon as he pulled up the picture of her driver’s license he knew he had found her. Holding the enhanced photos from Dallas to both sides of his monitor showed him that there was no doubt. It was definitely Megan Franchino.

‘How did she get documents solid enough to get a drivers license...?’ he thought to himself.

Suddenly he was unlocking a desk drawer and hurriedly rifling through folders. “God Damnit!!!!” he said aloud. “This is just embarrassing!”

He’d had all of her information in front of him for more than a month after the emergency identity had been granted. He’d not taken it seriously as being her though because of the ages and the fact she had a little girl instead of a little boy.

He began reading through the file again and realized that she had done a very thorough job of it. With her now being legally validated as a twenty-three year old, and her daughter being seven then and now eight... He shook his head. Sometimes things like this happened to make you feel utterly incompetent!

He began looking through all of the information on the drivers license that she’d given and also saw she had applied for a concealed carry permit that had been fast tracked and approved. ‘That’s not something I would have expected...’ he admitted to himself. He’d seen her as being a pretty innocent little lamb... but maybe tigress was a bit more accurate. He began looking through the address information and figured out it was a ranch outside of Santa Fe that specialized in organic ‘free range’ beef.

‘How did she end up there?’ he wondered but had no answers. Part of his problem was that Megan’s past was pretty hard to track down. Maybe it was a distant relative or something... In the end it didn’t matter. He was sure she was probably still there and knew what he needed to do. An hour later he had his paperwork in order to get one of the agency’s small jets setup to fly out there. His next call was to verify with his boss that he wanted both HRT teams on that plane in the morning.

He sighed once the bureaucracy had been appeased and headed home early to pack. Their plane was leaving at ten in the morning and he hoped to make contact with Megan on Friday. Who knew what that would bring?

Agent Kline decided to do what he could that afternoon to figure out where Megan had been and what she had been up to for the last four weeks. His search through the FAA database turned up her trip to Florida and a financial search showed that she was certainly doing very well in that category. He laughed, ‘He abused her, and she ran off with his money... I bet he’s more pissed than I realized.’

Through the joy of their systems he pieced together financial transactions enough that he knew they had returned back to Santa Fe. ‘I just hope this ends well...’

MOM AND I had slept surprisingly well that night, and I was now running on a second night of good sleep. That was something I hadn’t expected after seeing my dad. I was kind of bored and wanted something to do... But all of the adults were needed for things around the ranch and weren’t available to do anything with me. I couldn’t help but notice that morning that every hand had a pistol on a holster at their side... As far as I knew Hank hadn’t told them anything specific, just that there might be some guys showing up to rustle cattle.

About ten or so I was sitting on the porch and noticed a car driving up. I tensed up a bit but knew things should be okay. A few moments later I saw Emma!

“Emma!!!” I said and ran out and gave her a hug.

“How are you doing?” She asked.

“Better now! What are you doing here?” I asked her and her mom.

Her mother answered, “Well Gloria gave me a call earlier and seemed to think you needed someone to play with. We’re on our way to the pool and wondered if you might want to go to the pool and a movie with us?”

“Let me ask Gloria or my sister first...” I said. Just then though Mom wandered around the corner of the wrap around porch and waved.

“Hi,” she said the Emma’s mom.

“How are you doing?” She asked... a bit more on the double meaning side.

“We’re doing as well as we can be,” Mom answered. Obviously Emma had told her that our parents had died. I really hated lying all the time. Mom’s statement could be just as true about running into Dad yesterday though.

“If you need anything let us know,” she said.

Mom nodded, “Thanks, we appreciate that.”

“Gloria mentioned that Ashley might want to go swimming with us?”

“It’s up to you Ash,” Mom said to me.

I thought about it for a moment and nodded, “Please?”

“Okay, but you need to mind her,” she said to me.

“Yes ma’am,” I said.

“Okay then, why don’t you and Emma go up to your room and grab your swimsuit and something to change into afterwards... Or actually go ahead and change into your swimsuit up there.”

I nodded, knowing she meant I needed to take care of the gaff first.

Emma went upstairs with me and was as shocked by the house as I was when I first came in. “This is your room?!?” She asked in disbelief.

“Uh-huh... Umm... It’s okay, right?” I asked nervously.

“It’s like my dream room! How many AG dolls do you have?”

I had to think for a moment and answered, “Three, plus a bitty baby.”

“And this dollhouse?”

“It was Aunt Gloria’s oldest daughters... She had it in the attic and brought it down for me.”

I let her distract herself while I grabbed a gaff quickly and changed into my swimsuit in the bathroom and pulled the sundress I’d worn that day back over the top of it. I grabbed my princess backpack out of my closet and then put an extra pair of shorts, a t-shirt, and a pair of panties inside. One of my Princess towels also made it in the bag along with my hairbrush too.

“You have the coolest room ever!” She told me with a smile as we went downstairs.

“We should like have a sleepover sometime...” I suggested to her, “Then we could watch movies together downstairs in the home theater and play in the playroom there.”

“There’s a playroom too?!?”

I nodded and told her all about it as we met back up with her mom and my ‘older sister.’

“We’ll have her back by about four,” she told Mom.

“Cool, that’ll be great.” Mom gave me a hug and said, “Have a good time!”

Emma’s mom drove a minivan and I was sort of surprised to see the two booster seats in there. They were the high-back ones, but not as babyish as the actual car seat I had. Emma sat in one and pulled the seatbelt over her shoulder. “Do you need help sweetie?” Emma’s mom asked me.

“Umm... Sure,” I answered, “I have a different seat...”

She pulled the shoulder belt through the openings in the seat and buckled me up.

“What kind of seat do you have?” Emma asked from next to me.

I turned red, “A regular car seat still.”

“Oh... I guess that makes sense, you’re really short, aren’t you?”

“Yeah...”

“I actually thought you were a lot younger than me that first day because of it. I only have three more inches before Mom says I can sit in the regular seatbelt!”

“I’ll be lucky to hit that when I’m in high school!” I told her. “My mom...” I sniffled, “My mom used to say when I turned eleven she’d let me if I didn’t grow more.”

“I’m sorry,” she told me.

“It’s okay...”

She began asking me questions about anything and everything and I did the best to keep my answers within the story we had given. By the time we reached the pool I couldn’t believe how much she talked! Emma’s mom paid for our admission into the pool and we just left our stuff with her on the side of the pool. She insisted on putting sunscreen on both of us before she finally let us jump in the water. Emma was about five inches taller than me so she could walk farther out on her toes. I swam better though, so I went farther than her.

“That’s cheating,” she had said with a smile.

There were at least a hundred kids in the pool and we soon had a group of four others we joined up with and began playing some games for some diving toys that this one boy had brought with him. I wished I had goggles, but I just dealt with the fact my eyes were stinging from the chlorine. Everyone was surprised to see the little girl able to swim so well. No one could seem to believe I was actually eight though, and I just shrugged in the end.

We swam for over an hour before Emma’s mom came and got us out of the pool. I just showered in my swimsuit enough to wash the chlorine out of my hair before using an empty changing stall to switch into the shorts and the shirt I had brought with me. It was a cute top Madison and I had found in Justice and I thought it might make me look a little bit more like Emma’s age than my princess shirts would make me!

“Need help with your hair Ashley?” her mom asked a few minutes later while I was trying to brush out the tangles.

“Please?” I asked embarrassed.

“Don’t be shy or embarrassed Ashley, I still do Emma’s hair too. She may look like she’s four years older than you, but she’s not!”

I giggled at that, especially since in reality I was two years older than her! Emma convinced her mom to put my hair into pigtails like she had and soon we were off to McDonald’s for a kids meal. Once we were done with our food we headed to the movie theater and I couldn’t believe just how much fun I’d had that day hanging out with her! The movie was a decent animated kids movie that I enjoyed. By the end of it though I was desperate for the bathroom, and was most unhappy to discover a line. It took fifteen minutes for the three of us to get stalls and get out!

“They need more bathrooms,” I complained on the way out.

Emma’s mom just laughed, “Story of a girls’ life Ashley.”

Emma and I talked all the way back to the ranch, “I’ll talk to Amber and my aunt and see if we can’t have a sleepover next week!” I told her with a smile as I got out of the car.

“Okay, that sounds like fun!” She told me back.

Mom came out and greeted us, “Thank you for taking her today!” She told her with a smile.

“Happy to, let me know if you ever need her to come over or something... She’s a sweetheart, and I know Emma enjoyed playing with her.”

“Maybe we can have her over here sometime too,” Mom suggested.

“That would be great too.”

“Well, we’d better let you keep moving.”

“Thanks again!” I said to her and waved as she drove off.

“Did you have fun?” Mom asked as I walked with her inside.

“Uh-huh,” I told her, “though I had to convince the other kids at the pool that I’m really eight... They kept thinking I was six or something.”

Mom laughed at that, “You’ll appreciate it when you get older, but until then you’ll hate it!”
She gave me a hug and led me to the dining room where Gloria had already laid out the leftover spaghetti from the night before. It was just as good the second time around!

THAT NIGHT MOM let me sleep in her room again and I was grateful to have gotten another good night of sleep. After chores Hank said, “Ashley, Amber, let’s go ahead and go get some target practice in now.”

“Okay?” I responded.

“Sounds good Hank,” Mom told him.

The three of us drove out to the range once the guns were out of the safe. I enjoyed shooting my rifle for well over an hour and went through a hundred rounds before Hank had me shoot with the pistol. It was then that I noticed the target was different and felt my stomach grow icy for a moment.

“That’s supposed to be a person?” I asked.

He nodded, “I want to teach you a couple of shooting techniques with a pistol... Well, I hope you never have to use them Ashley, but you’re not exactly living the safest life right now.”

Mom gave me a sympathetic squeeze of the shoulder.

“Okay,” I told him.

“What I want you to do is fire two quick shots to the middle where the heart would be, and then a third to the head.”

I definitely didn’t like this but said, “okay... I’ll try.”

At first it was really nerve wracking, and my first set of shots was terrible. Well, the first was okay, but the second and third were wild. We practiced it for about thirty minutes before I began to get the hang of it, and another half hour until my sore wrists determined I was done. Mom had been practicing the same drill next to me at the next window over. I couldn’t help but notice her shooting was just as smooth as ever and the holes were always precise.

“Well, I guess let’s get this all cleaned up then, shall we?” Hank had said.

He had taught me how to clean my rifle and had me do the pistol as well. His instruction was very cautious on cleaning, teaching me that you always treated it like it was loaded unless you had it taken all the way apart. Hank showed me how to oil the parts properly and knew that my rifle would last me a long time if I took care of it.

It was nearly noon already when we got back to the ranch. “I’ll go put these up,” Mom said while holding the guns. She and Gloria wouldn’t give me the combination yet to the safes, and I doubted they would do so for a very long time, if ever. Gloria was serious in her belief that children do not handle guns alone. It was quite different though than someone who was anti-guns. Gloria believed guns had a purpose, and as long as you respected them, you would be okay.

I had to admit I really enjoyed shooting! Anytime I began to think it was weird for a girl to like shooting all I had to do was look at Mom’s smile as she shot. She clearly enjoyed it too.

Lunch was enchiladas that day and I was slowly coming around to the green chile that the locals put in everything. Burgers, desserts, pistachios, jerky, and I’d even noticed at the brewery we’d gone to that they had chile in their beer there. It was like some weird addiction that everyone in the state had!

“Ashley, would you help me pack this afternoon?” Collin asked me.

“Umm... Sure?”

“Cool,” he said and after lunch he led me downstairs to the room through the laundry room where Gloria kept all of the camping equipment. He pulled out a tent and set it on the table in the room.

“This will be your tent that you’ll share with Amber. It’s a two person tent and has plenty of ventilation for the warm summer air, or if it gets cooler it can be closed up too.”

“Oh, cool,” I said while not having the slightest idea how you would even use such a contraption. It was folded up into a small package and I was in disbelief that it would even be able to hold two people even as small as Mom and I!

“I have my own tent at home, and Annie and her husband will be bringing theirs too... Let’s get the cooking gear next!” he proceeded to have me help with little bits and pieces as we prepared enough stuff for the five of us to go camping for the two nights plus two more if needed.

“Why so long?”

“You never know how something can go wrong up in the mountains Ashley. Sometimes the best thing you can do is follow the Boy Scout motto and be prepared,” he said with a smile. In addition to some freeze dried packages of food he showed me the fishing gear and some emergency stuff that could be used. “The other thing is that if you’re ever in a really dire situation you take a rifle with you if you can. That let’s you hunt for food if you need it.”

I felt my face grimace at that and he laughed, “You’re still too much of a city girl sometimes!”

I just stuck my tongue out at him and kept helping him go over the equipment. Gloria had saddles and gear so that we would be hauling all of our stuff on the horses with no problems. We would take some water with us, but he also packed a water purifying set for each person for when it ran out. We were even taking two shovels with us. I had felt my face turn really red when he mentioned that we would have to dig a latrine when we got to the campsite. I was sure I could hold anything other than urine until we got back!

AGENT KLINE WALKED down the built-in staircase off of the plane and led the men out to where several vans were waiting for them. They were going to go to a hotel that night and hopefully catch up with Megan the next day. He had thought about driving out to the ranch alone to see her that night, but he was sure it was a bad idea for some reason.

At the hotel he called in the two teams commanders to his room to talk. “Hey Bob,” Brian Paulski, the head of one team said.

“How are you doing Brian?”

“Doing well, so is now when you tell us why we’re really here?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re not flying us down here to train at the counter-terrorism school. We just did that two months ago...”

Bob sighed, this was the problem when you worked with good agents; they were way too damned smart! “You remember the raid in Vermont a month ago?”

“The one that failed to catch the drugs?”

“That would be the one. The target was the Franchino family. They’ve been nasty and really tough to break into from the outside.” He said to the nods of both of their heads. “Well, last month - the week before the raid - his wife suddenly got up and disappeared with his son.”

“He off them?” Ryan, the other leader asked.

Bob shook his head, “No, I think she’d had enough of the abuse, and fled while she knew he would be gone for a week. He returned well before the week was up because he couldn’t get her to answer his calls and has been looking for her ever since... And so have I.”

“You think she’d be willing to turn evidence?” Brian asked.

“I’m hoping... But the fact she didn’t come to us is part of what has me so worried. We’ve had a couple of indications that the Franchino’s have a source inside the agency. Between the discovery of our agents in Vermont - we’re pretty sure they’re both dead - and the fact that Megan didn’t come to us I put it highly likely that they have someone.”

“Shit,” Ryan said.

“Yeah,” Bob said.

“So what are we doing here?”

“Well, you have three possible missions I think that might pop up here in the next couple days. The first is that I want you to ride backup with me to the ranch where I’ve found her to be in hiding when I contact her. Only one team for that though, and I’d prefer it only be with people we absolutely trust. That’s why I asked for you guys and we lied about the orders.”

“Okay, seems overkill...” Brian said.

“Probably is...”

“Possibility two?”

“Raimondo Franchino is here in Albuquerque right now working to get a new network going. We believe he is actively moving a large shipment of drugs but don’t have enough evidence yet to get a warrant. It’s possible though I’ll need you guys to perform a raid on one or more of their stores.”

“And last one?”

“Well the one that you’re supposed to be doing. If we don’t have a need for you it’ll be back down to Artesia for you guys!”

“I hope we need to do the raid...” Ryan grumped, “I don’t want to go do that school again until we have to... It’s intense!”

Bob laughed, “I have a feeling that’s not going to be in the cards honestly.”

They spent the next couple hours going over the plans if they needed to hit any of the stores or the ranch. Blueprints had been obtained by Bob before they left and he hoped it was as simple of a plan as it could be. Simple meant safer, and safer meant his wife wouldn’t kill him when he got back home!

MOM AND I spent some time that night making sure I had all of the right clothes packed. She taught me that layering was one of the most important things to consider for the cooler mountain nights and warmer days. She also spent time teaching me about how different fabrics were needed if it was sunny and dry, or cold and rainy. The forecast for the weekend showed the possibility of evening showers each day, so she talked to me about how to handle that. In the end she had me take a bath, washed my hair, and then I went to bed early in her room. She didn’t go to bed until a couple hours after she made me go to bed, but I was able to sleep through the night until the crack of dawn when she woke me up.

My chores were the one thing I had to do before we left that morning. We were up at five and I fed the poultry while Mom began helping Collin and Annie saddle and pack the horses. Consetta showed up early that morning and we ate a super big breakfast of pancakes, eggs, bacon, and sausage. After breakfast I wasn’t sure I would even be able to get on Beauty. I was also pretty sure she was going to gripe at me for gaining weight!

By seven we all gathered outside of the barn with our horses. Annie had introduced her husband Scott to me and he seemed to be friendly enough. He was definitely in his comfort zone around the horses, and climbed up and sat confidently on his horse like he had been doing it his whole life. Collin gave me a boost onto Beauty and I waited patiently for everyone else to get their rears in gear! I noticed for the first time that on my right side they had put my rifle into a holster on the saddle. I was quite happy to have it with me after running into Dad the other day.

“Ready?” Mom asked finally.

“Yes!” I told her and Beauty echoed my sentiment with a little snort of her own.

“Okay then, let’s go!” She said.

Since we were traveling with five people, and the horses had more than just us on them, it took us until noon to reach the meadow. There was an edge of the meadow that was sheltered a bit more by the rock face and our tents got pitched there next to an existing fire pit that looked well used.

Hot dogs were pulled out of a cooler bag that had been packed on one horse along with some chile con carne that Consetta had frozen from the last meal we’d had of it. That got added to a pot on the fire and soon we were eating a great lunch.

“RAY, THIS IS Greg,” he heard over the phone. He was just getting ready to drive to one of the stores, “Secure,” He said.

Raimondo checked his phone and said, “Secure, what’s up?”

“The head of the organized crime division is there in Albuquerque.”

“What?!?”

“Relax, from what our source tells me it’s not because of the pipeline... Though I think they know too much about it. We may need to rethink that... Anyway, in the meantime I wanted to tell you I think this guy found Megan.”

“Where?”

“Somewhere in that area. My source hasn’t been able to get access to any of his files, but from what he can tell he’s been searching everywhere and flew to Dallas last week to look for clues there.”

“He’s here in Albuquerque you said?”

“Yep.”

“Know where he’s staying?”

“Yes, you have a pen handy...?”

He scrambled over to the paper he had in his briefcase and said, “Go,” before writing down the address. He quickly began typing it in the GPS as he talked to Greg.

“Be careful man, there’s going to be two HRT teams with him. Supposedly it’s for training purposes down south, but our contact thinks that it’s just a cover story. While you’re at it you might want to tell our guys to go ahead and start moving stuff sooner rather than later.”

“On it,” he said.

He should have made a quick call to Carp, but all he cared about was finding Megan, “That bitch is going to get hers finally!” He said and pumped his fist. In the parking lot at the hotel he saw three black SUVs that just screamed FBI. All of them had blacked out windows that did no good at hiding the fact that a fully geared up team was walking out of the hotel and getting into the vehicle. The only thing missing were their guns out, but he was sure that’s what the cases contained. The team drove away and he took care to follow far enough back that he wouldn’t be noticed.

AGENT KLINE HAD decided it would be good courtesy to wait until lunch to call on Megan. He was sure he didn’t need the muscle he had with him to get her to come with them. He had them more for the case in which he did find her and needed to keep her safe until they could get her to a more secure safe house.

His phone rang five minutes outside of Albuquerque. “Agent Kline speaking,” he said.

“Bob, be warned, we’ve confirmed the leak.” Jake said to him.

“Shit, who was it?”

“Ben McKinney down in communications.”

“Has he been taken in yet?”

“Not yet, we’re keeping an eye on him to let him have just a bit more rope to hang himself. The problem is that he made a call to Greg Franchino about noon and told him he thinks you know where Megan is, and that you’re in Albuquerque looking for her.”

“So Raimondo probably knows that too by now... Shit!”

“Yeah, what do you want to do?”

“First thing I guess is we need to see if we’re being followed. I don’t think he should have been able to tell them where she is, I’ve kept that to myself.”

“You do know then?”

“Yeah, confirmed it day before yesterday. I don’t want to lead him right to her though...”

“Hey boss, we do have a tail,” Brian casually told him.

“Sure about that?”

“Yeah, looks like the picture of Raimondo too actually.”

“Shit, the last thing I want to do is lead that asshole straight to her. Hey Jake I’ll call you back…”

“Can we lead him to a decoy?” Brian suggested.

“Like?”

“Well... He doesn’t know for certain we’re heading there, right?”

“Right...?”

“Well, how about a visit to the penitentiary or something?”

Bob laughed, “That’s great, let’s do it!”

The team followed the roads to get to the NM State penitentiary and laughed as they noticed Ray stopped following. “You’d think he didn’t want to go into there or something?”

Bob got back on the phone to Jake, “We’ve lost our tail but are going to have to get to Megan somehow still. I don’t want to risk this asshole beating us to them.”

They talked for a while on coming up with an alternate plan.

MOM HAD SET up a target for me at the end of the long meadow and was giving me my longest distance to shoot yet. “Can I really shoot that far?” I asked her.

“I bet you can,” she said. She took the time to help me learn how to gauge the distance and adjust for it, much like Hank had. When I felt like I had it I pulled the trigger. I repeated the process until all seven rounds were gone, safed it, and then we went to see how I did. Collin was with us, while Annie and Hank had gone to the opposite side of the meadow from our target to gather some firewood.

I grinned widely when we approached the target. You could see all seven holes, and all seven were in the bull’s-eye!

Collin whistled, “Remind me never to get on your bad side... I think you may shoot better than Kenneth ever could!” He paused, “And that’s saying something considering he was a sniper in the army...”

“It’s so easy, I don’t know why everyone keeps making a big deal over it. I bet Mom could have done it too,” I said.

Mom grinned at me, “Maybe... But no doubt, you’re gifted at it!”

We went back down range again after setting up a new target and Mom sent us climbing a little way up the hillside so that I was shooting down into the meadow instead of across. I took my seven shots that time and then saw Mom was using a spotter scope and writing down things.

“What are you writing?” I asked after I safed it.

“Where you hit, I’ll do the same after I shoot, and the same after Collin shoots this time,” she said with a smile.

Mom took her seven shots and sure enough marked down the new holes. I followed her hits with the spotter scope and knew she was hitting the bull’s-eye most of the time. I couldn’t understand her shorthand though, so I couldn’t see her official hits. Collin took his turn next while Mom watched and then we walked down to the target. There were fourteen holes that had bored a solid mass through the target... At least that’s what we figured. There was no bull’s-eye anymore at that point. Then there were seven shots spaced several circles out and farther.

“Collin’s?” I asked Mom.

“Yep,” she said.

“So don’t make either of you angry is the verdict?” He said with a smile.

“And don’t let you shoot anything important!” I teased.

We reset the target and shot another round of shots a piece before heading back to the camp. Mom had me clean and reload the rifle, leaving it loaded but safed in the tent. “Why leave it loaded?”

“An unloaded gun will do us no good out here,” she said, “that’s part of why Hank taught you that every gun is to be treated like it’s loaded.”

“Oh...” I said.

Our tent was pretty cool, and Mom had put it up very quickly with just a little help from me. It was easily large enough for both of us, and we could stand up inside too since we were short. It had a covered porch area in front that was kind of handy too. Mom used a floor mat to pad the floor inside the main tent, and we had unrolled our sleeping bags in there after lunch.

It was getting on towards dinnertime so we all began gathering back at the campsite. Annie pulled out the pots and some water and began reheating some more of the chili that we hadn’t eaten at lunch. There were more hotdogs too and I watched her begin to boil some water.

We were eating dinner when she took out a couple of freeze-dried packages and poured water into them. “What’s that?”

“Dessert,” she told me with a smile.

I just nodded, uncertain on how that would taste. We still had cold packs on breakfast for the next morning I knew. Enough eggs and bacon for all of us, and then we’d be eating freeze dried food for the next three to four meals Collin had explained to me. It looked kind of cool in the packaging, but I wondered if it was really edible…

When I finished with my cup of chili, and the hotdog I had roasted, I rinsed out my cup with a little bit of water. Annie waved at me and poured in some of the stuff she had made with the freeze-dried mix. It smelled of cinnamon and apples... And it tasted pretty good too!

“Yum,” I said.

“It’s my favorite out of these packages,” Annie told me.

“Why did we waste them tonight then?” I asked her.

“Don’t worry, I packed enough for dinner tomorrow night too,” she said with a wink. We began cleaning up everything and Annie and I went down to the stream to rinse stuff out.

RAIMONDO HAD LOOKED up at the road in front of him and decided he needed to call it a day and head back to town. Following the feds to prison seemed like an ironic and stupid choice to make. He had gotten on his phone and called Greg, “Hey Cousin, secure?”

“Secure.”

“I don’t know if the feds knew I was following them or not. Have you heard any news about any sort of riot at the Santa Fe prison?”

“Not that I’ve seen, let me check the internet real quick though.”

The line was quiet for a few minutes, “Nothing there, why?”

“Well that probably means they figured out I was following them. It was sudden after a phone call it looked like too...”

“You were close enough to see they were on a damn phone call?” Greg asked, “You idiot! They probably made you!!!”

“You sure they don’t know about your source?”

Greg paused, “Pretty sure... I don’t know that it matters right now though; he didn’t have any direct information on where Megan is. Their lead agent is holding that address as a tightly guarded secret.”

“Well I guess we’ll just have to find a way to follow him there still...”

“How do you propose that?”

“Let me find a couple guys down here, I’ll get back to you later.”

“Don’t do nothing stupid now!”

“Don’t worry.”

AGENT KLINE WAS grateful for the prison having state of the art monitoring not only on the inside of the prison, but also on the roads leading to it. They were able to clearly identify when Raimondo stopped and finally turned around to go back to town. “I take it you need to lose him?” One of the prison guards asked.

“Yes... I think we may have done so, but not sure.”

“Tell you what, take my car, drop it off at my house when you’re done with it and have these guys meet you there.”

“How will you get home?”

“I’ll bum a ride from my brother when he goes home.”

“You sure?”

“Positive,” he said and passed him the keys, “Green Chevy Equinox outside.”

With that Kline had left the prison and turned down the road. He’d left his team behind in the hopes that it would be easier to slip off unnoticed. Unfortunately he didn’t know if that would be the case one way or another though. He wound his way through the roads and finally came to a long dirt road. Bob hoped that maybe this whole case would soon be done.

He pulled up to the very nice house as light was just fading.

“Mister raise your hands so I can see them.” He heard and saw a lady pointing a large rifle at him.

“I’m an FBI Agent,” he announced.

“If that’s the case then you have some ID, correct?”

“Yes ma’am,” he said.

“Pull it out of your pocket slowly and keep that hand away from your gun.”

Kline did so and couldn’t help but admire the spunk of this lady who was his mother’s age. He opened the holder to show it to her.

“Seeing as how I can’t see too well anymore you’re going to have to get it closer to me. Come on up here son,” she said.

He felt his face flush red and walked slowly up until she could see it clearly and lowered the rifle.

“Sorry about that sir, but it’s not normal for me to get a visitor this time of night, least of all a stranger packing a gun.”

“How could you tell?” He asked.

“What?”

“That I had a gun?”

“Your coat doesn’t hide it that well Agent... Kline.” She said while looking at the ID and handed it over.

“Well, why don’t you come inside and talk. I have a feeling that’s what you’re here for, correct?”

Out of all of the things he expected this was not it.

“Umm... Yeah, I guess.”

She led him into a very nice house that his wife would have loved and into a comfortable sitting room. “Can I get you coffee, tea, or anything?”

“Umm... Coffee, black, would be fine.” He said more than anything to put her more at ease.

She returned a few moments later with two cups of coffee and handed him one. “So... What can I do for you Agent?”

“Megan Franchino, she’s here, correct?”

He felt his heart freeze and plummet a moment later when she shook her head. “She just left this morning.”

He sighed, “Of course...”

“She will however be back Sunday.”

“Huh?”

“She took her daughter, and a few other friends up camping. They’ll be coming back on Sunday.”

“Ma’am, if I may ask, why are you being so helpful?”

“Because Megan needs to stop running and you need to get rid of that scumbag of a husband of hers. I’m tired of hearing her daughter cry out from nightmares in the middle of the night! The poor little girl shouldn’t already be suffering from PTSD, but there it is.”

“Do you think she’ll cooperate with us?”

“Depends on what you want to do to her. If you want to let her continue to live a better life I don’t think she’ll mind. You need to be willing to deal with the fact she has a daughter now instead of a son...”

“So it’s not just a disguise?”

“It started out that way, sure enough, but Ashley has discovered that she’s really meant to be this way. It’s going to be a rough road ahead for her, but I imagine she’ll be fine in the end.”

The agent stayed and talked with her for over an hour before saying, “I guess I’ll come back Monday morning then?”

“You’re welcome to do that. All I ask is that if she refuses to go with you that you respect her wishes. Poor girl has been through more than anyone ever should...”

He was walking out when he turned and said, “We know who our leak was, and just to warn you Raimondo is in Albuquerque.”

“We know, he just about gave Ashley a heart attack the other day, but he didn’t recognize her.”

“She looks that convincing?”

“If you don’t see her naked you would never know.”

He shook his head and said, “Sometimes these cases just get weirder and weirder...” to himself as he got back into the car and drove off. His team waited for him at the guard’s house and they were soon on their way back to Albuquerque.

ALL OF US lay back on blankets in the middle of the meadow as the last glimmers of daylight faded away. I couldn’t believe how clear the stars were then. “That’s the Milky Way,” Mom told me and traced a portion of the sky in the air.

“Wow!”

She showed me all sorts of constellations in the sky and after a while we returned to the fire where Scott stoked it a bit. “How about a story?” He asked.

“Not too scary,” Mom warned him.

He smiled at Mom, “We’ll save those for a few years down the road then...” Instead he began telling a story about Coyote and how he got his brown color. The way he wove the story around a blue bird, and him, involved many of the ideas of the Native American tribes in the area. I was entranced the whole time he told the story. At the end of it Mom said, “Okay, time for bed...”

I groaned but stood up and gave Collin, Annie, and Scott all hugs and told them goodnight. Mom had let me bring Saige and Kari, but not Kaitlyn on the trip and they were both waiting in the tent. I hadn’t had any time to play with Saige, but I cuddled up with Kari inside the sleeping bag as Mom zipped me up.

“Good night Princess,” she told me with a kiss on my forehead and then stepped back outside.

They all spoke in low voices around the fire for a long time that night and occasionally I would hear my own name. I tried to ignore it though and go to sleep. It wasn’t easy though... I must have eventually nodded off, since I didn’t remember Mom coming into the tent that night. I didn’t wake up until I heard the sound of her watch alarm going off.

Chapter 24: Circling

“Come on AMBER,” I said to her for a change.

She groaned, and slowly got herself out of the bag, and out to the fire where Annie had already started cooking. We each had our fill of scrambled eggs and bacon that morning and it was really good! Something about frying the eggs over the fire made them taste so much better than back home. After we all ate Mom and I returned to the tent and she had me wipe myself down with some baby wipe things before changing into another set of jeans and another t-shirt.

By nine we had everything packed back up and loaded onto the horses. We rode for three hours before taking a break to make lunch at an existing fire pit. This was another of the freeze dried dinners; chicken and gumbo this time. I kind of felt like turning my nose up a bit at this one, but it was what was there to eat so I ate it. Being picky out here wouldn’t be something my Mom or anyone else would be likely to be okay with!

After we had all eaten we poured several buckets worth of water onto the fire, stirred the slush up with one of our shovels, and then repeated that. Collin took the time to explain to me how many forest fires the area had already had that year, and he didn’t want to see anymore because of a poorly put out fire! Especially since they had just lifted the campfire restrictions the week before!

This next camping spot was a lot farther away apparently, because we didn’t reach the spot until two hours after lunch. We began setting up camp right away since the clouds that were rolling in didn’t look friendly.

RAY HEARD HIS phone ring and immediately answered it, “Hello?”

“Secure?”

“Secure,” he said back after checking.

“They’re at a ranch above Santa Fe. I’ve got an address for you here too.”

“How?”

“Kline got cute and decided to borrow a guards car... Just so happens he’s family… and the car’s equipped with OnStar!”

That made Ray laugh, “What are the odds of that?”

Greg laughed too, “Pretty good at most of the prisons actually. It helps to keep anyone that might forget Omerta in line you know...”

Ray nodded, “So what’s the address...?”

He spent a moment writing it down, “Thanks Greg.”

“Hey, I recommend you go take care of things tomorrow night, should be the least busy time on the ranch.”

“Got it, I’ll go tomorrow night about eleven or so and sneak up.”

“Sounds like a plan, but be careful, you are in the West.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means more of them have guns and will shoot your ass,” he told him.

“Don’t worry, I’ll have guns too.”

He hung up the phone and began making the plans he’d need to fix things permanently. The fact that they were already in a remote area would make the job of hiding his wife’s body much easier. He would probably just knock out his son or tie him up to get him back home. His dad could have him as far as he was concerned at this point. She’d probably completely turned the boy on him in the last month.

Ray started to make phone calls...

AGENT KLINE SAT in the hotel room with Brian and Ryan discussing the day before. “I think that was a bit too easy for you to get that guard’s car Boss,” Brian told him.

He thought for a moment and agreed, “I think so too... Do you think I was followed?”

“Could have just tracked you. Not that hard, and it was a newer car, right?”

He felt kind of stupid right then as that was possible, “Yeah... It was.”

“Should we move up when we’re going for Megan?”

He thought for a moment, “Let’s stick to the plan for now. Honestly I don’t think he has a chance if he goes to the place and tries to take her back. The house has a really good security alarm and I’m guessing more guns around than anywhere but maybe Brian’s garage.

“That many?” Ryan asked with a smile.

“Maybe more...”

“I wonder if they would let me play...” Brian said.

“We’re going in there for business Brian, not pleasure.”

He sighed with a smile.

“Okay, let’s plan tomorrow as being on alert but keep our plans flexible. We should also be prepared just in case the call comes in to hit the stores. I doubt that happens though.”

MOM AND I sat in the tent and watched the rain plummet around us. The tent had a little porch overhang that was nice because it gave us a place to put our muddy boots and we could leave the front ‘door’ open and watch it fall. It was crazy how hard and fast the rain was falling, but we were totally dry and comfortable in the tent.

Annie had stashed some of the firewood she had quickly collected in our porch area and some in each of the other tents shadows where it would keep dry. I had a feeling the fire that had been started before the rain was definitely out by now! A clap of thunder sounded loudly right then and I found myself sitting with my back to Mom, her arms around me, and my arms squeezing Kari as tightly as I could.

Another loud crack of thunder happened moments later, and blinding flashes of lightning and deafening claps of thunder soon surrounded us. “Mommy, are we safe in here?”

She sighed, “There’s plenty of tall trees near us that the lightning would strike before us. Remember height is a big part of it. Plus we’re in the middle of the tent right now away from the poles, and you and I are sitting on some rubber from the padded mats that I put underneath our bags. We’re about as safe as we could be.”

I nodded and watched the storm continue around us for what seemed like forever. Eventually though things started to slow down and after it kept sprinkling for five more minutes stopped altogether. “Wow, what a storm!” I heard Collin say from his tent next to us.

I kept clutching Kari as I got up and walked out to see what it looked like now. The stream wasn’t too far from us and had swollen its’ banks quite a bit. We were high enough it wouldn’t affect us, but it was running high and really fast now. It looked like the water had changed colors too, it was nearly clear before the storm, and now it was muddy and almost red from the dirt around us.

Collin and Scott began to clean the water and wet dirt out of the fire pit, and then brought out the firewood and kindling Annie had stashed around earlier. I watched as they built the wood up, and was enthralled as they started the kindling of pine needles and various small twigs that led to a blazing fire that felt really nice. By then it was starting to get dark and the rain had brought a freezing chill to the air. I went back to my bag in the tent and pulled the hooded sweatshirt over my head that we’d packed. I brought my windbreaker jacket we’d bought out with me too, just in case.

RAIMONDO WAS IN the back of the warehouse of one of the stores in a room they had secreted when building it. The room sat under the slab foundation. It was a tricky thing to do, but when it was done there was no way a person would easily be able to find the room’s entrance. Through the use of a lock on the side below ground it was impossible to get in, and they knew from experience that people would give up quickly on finding it.

Nicholas, Bill, Danny, and Randy were the best men they had in the state. They were his security for the operation here and he knew they were smart. “So tomorrow night, I have a job for you guys to help me out with.”

“What’s that?”

“We’re going to get my wife and son from where they’re hiding.”

“What?” Randy asked.

“They ran out on me a few weeks back, and I need to make sure they’re not a problem.”

“You’re going to kill your own kid?” Bill asked.

“No, he’s not to be harmed. He’ll be going to my father’s for a while.”

“But your wife?” Danny asked.

“Feds are looking for her too. If she ends up with them we’ll all be doing time.”

“You can’t do it any other way?” Danny asked.

“What, are you chicken?” Ray asked.

“No, but I’m not a fan of offing women, especially when they’re family.”

“She’s not family anymore!!!” Raimondo fairly shouted. “If you don’t like it don’t worry about it, I’ll take care of it.”

“Chill out Ray, we’re just making sure that you’re making decisions you can live with.” Randy said. “So where is she?” He said to keep the tension down.

Ray proceeded to give them all of the details and showed them the printed satellite photos from Google Maps, and the pictures it showed as well from the road. All in all they didn’t have a lot of details, but with it being remote he figured it wouldn’t be a problem. “Look, if we go in tomorrow night it’ll be just Megan, Tony, and this lady who owns the place - should be a piece of cake.”

“What are you going to do with the bodies?” Bill asked.

“I’ll dump the old lady and Megan in a grave out a ways into the woods. I figure we’ll have to tie Tony up in the end and put him in the back of my car.”

“This could go bad man,” Nicholas spoke for the first time.

“It won’t be a problem,” Ray insisted. “Now, can you get us some good guns for this?”

“What do you want?” Nicholas asked.

“What can you get?”

“About anything.”

“Well, how about a pistol apiece and... Some sort of small machine guns?”

“Overkill?” He asked and raised an eyebrow, “Shouldn’t be a problem though. I’ll meet you and the others out here,” he said pointing at a spot a mile away from the store, “at ten to drive out?”

“Should work. I want us to be able to walk into the place and be set by one. That should give us plenty of time to take care of business and get out of there.”

“That’s the plan then,” Bill said, a little uneasily.

“That’s the plan.”

ALL OF US sat around the fire that had been made larger than the previous nights. The heat from it kept my front warm while my back felt pretty cool. I had long since added the windbreaker over my hoodie because it was just so much cooler that night. Annie told me at one point it wasn’t that bad though, sometimes this time of year it would still get down to the low forties or even upper thirties if the rain pattern hit just right. We were at about nine thousand feet where we were camped out tonight, so it grew cooler normally anyway.

“So how are you liking it out here?” Annie asked me as I roasted a marshmallow on a stick.

“I like it a lot... It’s a lot calmer,” I told her.

She smiled, “I’m glad to hear that.”

“The last few weeks have been hectic... But it’s...” I paused and made sure Scott wasn’t there, “it’s nice to know I’m not going to wake up with Mom having more bruises, or getting hit myself by Dad. I’m sure one or both of us would have been dead in another year or so if we stayed.”

She nodded, “I’m glad you’re here. You definitely make Gloria act a lot younger!”

I laughed, “I can’t imagine her ever acting old!”

All around the campfire that night I talked with Annie and Scott, and only barely noticed Mom and Collin coming back from somewhere a little ways off. ‘I wonder... But I can’t see Mom being willing to do that for a while...’

I glanced up at the sky and said, “Whoa!!!” A shooting star had just left a long trail across the sky and made me smile. I wondered if Mom had seen it and made her own wish. I ended up finding a blanket and laying it down a little away from the fire and laying down on my back watching the sky. I saw another dozen shooting stars before Mom said, “Princess, it’s time for bed.”

I sighed but responded, “Okay.”

I went to each of them and gave them a hug goodnight before going to the tent and putting on a pair of pajama bottoms and taking off my windbreaker. I kept the hooded sweatshirt on with the hood pulled over my head and cuddled into the warm sleeping bag. Mom came in and gave me a kiss goodnight before going back out.

That night I didn’t even notice the voices around the campfire.

MEGAN SAT OUTSIDE, next to the fire and looked at Collin, wondering if there was ever really any real possibility. They had gone off a little ways and talked earlier and he’d told her he was interested. The fact that Gloria had practically raised him made her believe he had to be a great guy – but she was technically still married. Well... Megan Franchino was - Amber Caffrey wasn’t.

She sighed.

‘If only I could just be done with all of this and get on with our lives... Maybe I should take a chance and talk to the FBI. If they know that there’s a leak maybe they’ll take better precautions with me...’

“Hey Amber, have we checked in with Gloria today?” Annie asked.

“No, I guess we should. I’ll go call her,” Megan said. She went to her bag and found the ranch’s satellite phone. Expensive to say the least for call time, but when you were up in the mountains and needed to contact someone in an emergency it was an absolute necessity. The idea of contacting Gloria had been planned for this trip, but no one had done it last night. She quietly went back out of the tent and out a little ways from the fire and dialed.

“Hello?” She heard from the other end.

“Hey, it’s...”

“I know who you are dear,” Gloria interrupted oddly.

She thought for a second... “Are you okay?”

“I’m definitely fine,” she said, “I was just watching my soap opera from earlier, really made me sad.”

‘So the FBI has been there today...’

“Won’t it be on again tomorrow?” Megan asked.

“No, not until Monday unfortunately.”

“Was it a happy episode.”

“So, so, not violent or anything like a month back.”

“Well, maybe I’ll have to get caught up on it later. We’re on schedule right now, we’ll see you then.”

“Sounds good Tracy, talk to you later.”

Megan hung up the phone and walked back to the fire and sat down next to Collin. Before long she was in tears and accepting the comfort of a man who at the moment was a friend, but she could see being more. None of that mattered right then, because the world she had tried to create for herself and her daughter was breaking apart into a million pieces.

AGENT KLINE SAT in his room with both teams standing and sitting all over the place. “What I’m about to tell you does not leave this room. I swear if it does I will find you the nastiest hellhole of a prison cell and let you rot there,” he said seriously to the men.

“When Megan Franchino ran from her husband last month I hoped immediately she would finally be our way to break the family. I had a feeling she would know plenty of things since her husband is the second in command to his father. Unfortunately she just outright disappeared, a genuine Houdini act.” He said, “She went so far as to drive across state lines, switch cars, changed her and her child’s identity, etc. She was so thorough that I only really lucked out on finding her. Honestly if she left tomorrow I have no doubt we’d have a hellish time finding her again.”

“So why don’t we go get her now?” One of the second team’s members asked.

“Plain and simple, she’s on a camping trip up in the mountains. She’s supposed to be back tomorrow and we’re going to get her on Monday.”

“Is that wise to let her have the time to run?” One of Ryan’s men asked.

“I think she’ll decide to come in at this point. My guess is that she knew about the mole we had.”

“What?” One of his other men asked.

“You heard right, we confirmed a traitor in our communications department today. He’s been passing on information to the Franchino family for a while. It’s probable that he knows why we’re in the area, and that’s why Raimondo followed us to the ranch... Or tried to.”

“You think that double act stopped him?” Brian asked.

“No, because I had Jake check up on the guard, he’s a distant cousin to the family.”

“You’re shitting us, right?” Taylor, Ryan’s sharpshooter asked.

“Wish I was.” Bob said to them.

“So now what?” Ryan asked.

“Now we plan for the worst. I want us in position around the ranch tomorrow afternoon just in case something happens. I’m worried that now that he knows where they’re at he’ll go after her.”

The men talked long into the night about their plan and how to go about trying to protect what they knew would be a valuable witness and a very sweet little girl. Bob made no mention of Tony as a boy in this case, as he didn’t want his men surprised to see a little girl...

MEGAN WIPED HER face and sniffled, “Sorry about that.”

“What are you sorry for?” Collin asked, “You’ve literally been through Hell and now it looks like your cover is blown and things are falling apart... You have the right to be upset.”

She just nodded.

“Look, I know things are absolutely hectic right now, and I doubt you’re sure of anything... But I really like you. If you need anything, all you have to do is ask. I’d be happy to drive you and Ashley somewhere, and get you out of there tomorrow night before they come on Monday if you want.”

Megan shook her head, “I’m tired of running... I just want all of this over with,” she sniffled, “I want my daughter to know where she is will be safe and not have to look over her shoulder... And most of all I want my scumbag of a husband behind bars.”

“You don’t have to do that alone anymore though,” he told her with a smile, “I dare him to try and get through Gloria, Hank, Annie, Me... Or even Ashley for that matter. I’ve never seen a kid shoot that well in my life! Give her a rifle and a shot and I have no doubt the kid would be able to protect her own without any problems.”

“I know she could... I don’t want her to though. No kid deserves to have her childhood ripped away from her like that.”

Collin nodded, “Well, then we just have to make sure she doesn’t have to have that happen.”

“Do you think Ray will be close behind?” She asked him.

“I don’t know, I guess it depends on how bad that leak is that you told me about.”

“Pretty bad... He knew everything coming and going out of the organized crime division. I would always hear just bits and pieces mind you, but I think it’s probably someone involved in communications or something.”

“Well, maybe this agent who is smart enough to find you will be smart enough to figure out that too...”

“Maybe,” Megan allowed, just like she allowed his arm to stay around her.

Finally she sighed and said, “Collin, I need to get some sleep if we’re going to have more drama to deal with in the next couple of days,” she said. It was a moment of hesitation but she hugged him, “Thank you for being there for me tonight... Maybe at some point we can re-evaluate things. If I didn’t have everything going on I would say yes in a heartbeat.”

Collin smiled, “Then I’ll just have to wait and hope it all falls into place, won’t I?”

She smiled at him and went back to the tent to find Ashley had twisted and rolled partially over her sleeping bag. Megan had to avoid a giggle – that was so like her!

GLORIA STOOD AT her front door window and made sure the alarm was engaged. She had a bad feeling that something was going to happen in the next couple days. Given everything she had called Hank and a couple of the other hands, and asked them to come and stay tomorrow night for safeties sake. She hadn’t gone into details, but she let them know in her own way that she worried about something.

None of them would ever refuse her that kind of help because she almost never asked for it.

With everything shut up tight she knew things were pretty secure on a normal basis. Her alarm was something her son had installed for her a few years back. It could be set to complete motion sensor controls, entrances and first floor motion, or just entrances. She tended not to use the first floor motion because of guests setting it off, but used her bedroom controls to go ahead and arm that before lying down. Normally an alarm panel like that would run over regular phone lines to the company, but she had a connection over satellite along with her Internet. It was fully backed up by a battery system that could last five days without the generators being turned on... so it wasn’t easily bypassed...

Or so her son had told her.

He worried about her being up here by herself most of the time. Until Megan and Ashley moved in that was the normal way of life. She just about wanted to sob thinking about the possibility of the two of them leaving Monday. The feds had found her though, and she was certain they would want her to be in their custody for protection. Though the girl had never been involved in anything illegal, they would make a strong case for her to testify... And given Megan actually had evidence - that would make her even more important to them.

‘I wonder if Ashley could stay here while she goes...?’ she thought to herself. That little girl, for that’s what she definitely was, brought a smile and a whole new sense of life around the ranch. She couldn’t begin to accept the idea of her being gone...

Gloria got up and went to the bathroom to wipe her face off again and returned to bed. Whatever happened would happen, and there wasn’t really anything anyone could do at that point. Megan could run again... But she was pretty sure she was done running.

I WOKE UP the next morning to the sounds of pouring rain hitting our tent. It was like last night without the lightning and thunder. It seemed to go on forever too! Mom woke up then too and I curled up in my bag next to her. “How long do you think it will last?” I asked.

“Probably no more than another half-hour, I’m surprised it’s lasted this long actually. Most storms here are thirty minutes and done!”

The storm lasted much longer than that though, and it was easily ten-thirty by the time it had stopped raining. I stepped out into the air outside and saw a gorgeous double rainbow leading from the edge of the mountainside all the way across the sky.

“Whoa!” I said, “Mom come see this!” I told her.

She ended up getting her camera and taking some pictures of it, and me in front of it. It was quite the sight and I didn’t realize my mistake until Scott said, “Mom?”

I sighed and looked at Mom, trying not to cry. She gave me a hug and said, “It’s okay sweetie, and it’s all coming unraveled now anyway.”

“Scott... Collin and Annie already know about this, and so does Gloria... Ashley isn’t my sister, she’s my daughter.”

“Well that explains why you mother her a lot more than I would expect a big sister to do...” He said. “What’s the story?” He asked.

So over the fire Mom told our story once more. It was getting so tiring to deal with it all that I tuned Mom out and helped Annie get water to boil for our hot drinks and oatmeal. Annie also mixed up the last of the regular pancake mix. Thankfully we still had some good water, because the stream looked nasty to drink out of. As high as it had been the night before, it was much more now!

Annie did an amazing job with the griddle on the fire that morning and I couldn’t believe the pancakes were cooked outside on a campfire! By the end of breakfast Scott was of the opinion, “Let’s just shoot the bastard and be done with him, not like we don’t have plenty of acres to hide the body.”

Mom hadn’t been happy I heard it, but in some ways I had to admit it would be easier! It was ‘Western Justice’ to them. Because of our late start for breakfast we had an even later start to get back. “I hope nothing else goes wrong today,” Mom told me, “Otherwise we may not make it back tonight.”

She was riding alongside me as the trail was wider and said, “Ashley... I don’t know how to say this...?”

I wondered if this was about Collin... “Just tell me,” I told her.

“The FBI has found us.”

I looked at her, “What?!? How??? We can’t stay here, can we? Why aren’t we already running?” I asked her.

Mom sighed, “I think it’s time to stop running. As to the how... Well, the fact it took them a solid month to find us is pretty impressive nowadays. Computers are the bane of everyone’s existence if your goal is to stay hidden.”

We talked for a long time before we heard, “Help!!!! Help us please!!!!!!!!!” from a small steep game trail next to us that led down the steep bank thirty feet to the swollen stream, which now seemed like a raging river. All of us pulled to a stop and could see a group of people that looked to be in pretty bad shape.

Collin, Annie, Mom, and Scott jumped off their horses and picketed them quickly before carefully peering over the side of the bank. Knowing no one had time to help me down I carefully made my own jump down and almost fell on my face as the mud was slippery beyond belief. I tied Beauty off too to a tree and joined them.

“Are you hurt?” Collin shouted down.

“My son’s leg is broken I think, and my wife’s arm seems to be as well.”

“Anything else?”

“Other than being cold and hungry, no,” he said.

“Okay, we’re going to get you up here, but it’s going to take a little bit for us to get situated, stay together and you’ll keep warmer,” Collin said to them before we all gathered at the top.

“Okay, it’s cool enough with the rain they were in that we’re going to have to keep an eye on them for hypothermia... Shouldn’t be a problem now the sun is out... but you never know. They look pretty bad off. First thing we have to do is get down there though and splint off those broken bones and then we’ll pull them up.” Annie said.

“I agree,” Collin said.

“Well, I guess one or two of us are going to have to go down the bank?” My mom asked.

“Yeah...” Collin said, “I should probably stay up here with Scott to pull people up.”

“Why the hell would we do that with humans moron, that’s what we have horses for,” Annie told him with a smile.

“You just don’t want to go down there,” he laughed at her.

“Damn right!” She said.

“Okay, let’s get the rope and tie it off to the tree, I’m glad I brought everything...” Collin said. It turned out that he didn’t know exactly what we were going to do in our downtime so he had brought two complete sets of rappelling gear with him. A solid tree was soon used to tie off to and all of us were given a crash course on how to help with the ropes.

I’m sad to say I mostly stayed out of the way during this, being only four feet tall and fifty pounds soaking wet did not lend well to rescuing people. I couldn’t help but be amazed though how well the four of them worked together. They worked calmly, and soon Mom and Collin walked down the steep bank carefully using the ropes to keep them from falling straight down. Both of them carried first aid kits and between them the five space blankets we had brought. Those were unwrapped quickly by the people below and I hoped they were warming up.

“Umm... Annie, would a fire be helpful?” I asked.

“Ashley it would, but there’s no where safe right here to start one... And I doubt you’ll find any dry wood right now. If we get stuck out here tonight it’s going to be a bear to get a fire started.”

“Oh,” I said simply. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Pray sweetie,” she said to me. “And when that little girl and her brothers get up here, try and reassure them and help them out however you can. It’s a scary situation, and they’ll be even more scared because the adults are.”

“Okay,” I said. I watched as Collin pulled on the boy’s leg for a moment and a shout of pain went up. They then wrapped his leg with a bandage and tied a splint onto it. The mother’s arm followed and soon they decided they were stable enough to bring them up.

“We’re sending up the kids first!” Mom shouted up.

“Go ahead, we’re ready!” Annie shouted. She and Scott then used the rigged ropes and tied off an end to their horses to gently pull the kids up the slope. These were the two that weren’t hurt so they were able to use the rope to more or less walk up. Every once in a while a small wave of mud would break loose and fall to the area below. Luckily nothing hit anyone down below and they moved farther away.

As they came to the top I could see one was a little girl younger than me... Probably only about four, and the other was a boy about my identities age. Both of them were filthy and looked to have bruises all over.

I gave them both a hug as soon as Annie had helped them out of the harnesses and took them farther from the edge. “Hi, I’m Ashley,” I said to them.

“I’m... I’m...” the boy tried to say, “I’m Jacob... And...”

“And I’m Bella...”

‘So their Mom must be a Twilight fan...’ I thought in my head.

“Nice to meet you,” I told them. I don’t have a clue what I talked about with the two of them for the next half hour, but I did my best to distract them with a light conversation. Meanwhile, Collin helped the hurt son get up the hillside, and then Mom and the mother, and then finally Collin went back down for the dad.

“Thank you so much... I don’t know what we would have done if we’d been stuck there another day...”

I couldn’t help but notice that while they had jackets they didn’t seem to have any backpacks. “What happened?” I asked.

“Ashley...” Mom scolded.

“Sorry...”

“No it’s okay, I bet I would want to know too,” the Mom said with a kind look at me. “We planned a two night trip Friday night through yesterday and pitched our tent too close to the stream. The rain came and the stream rose so fast our camp got washed away. We ran as quickly as we could, but somehow in all of that we ended up down that hill where you found us.”

“All of our gear got washed away except the jackets we had on...” the dad said.

“Thank you,” the wife said tearfully and hugged everyone.

“Happy to help,” Collin said.

“We’re going to have to get you guys back for help and medical treatment. I’m assuming you walked in here?” Annie asked.

They nodded.

“Well, let’s get this climbing gear stowed away and I think we should be able to get you on the horses if we ride double.”

“I’ve never ridden a horse before?” The little girl had her eyes go wide.

I looked down at her and said, “It’s easy! They do all the work, plus you’ll be riding with Collin right there I bet, and he’s a great rider!”

“Can I ride with you?” She asked.

I sighed, “I’d love to have you, but Beauty would be the easiest horse to handle me and your dad, I promise Collin will take good care of you and I’ll be right there!”

It was about three by the time we managed to get everyone situated. The dad sat behind me on Beauty and the Mom joined Annie. Collin took Bella, Mom took the biggest boy with the broken leg - his name was indeed Edward - and Scott took Jacob. It was weird having an adult behind me who wasn’t good with horses and we had to go really slow down the trail. Even so, Mom’s horse stepped in holes or stumbled a few times, causing the boy to cry out in pain. About five-thirty the clouds started to build again and Collin and Mom decided with the others to halt and setup camp.

Mom called out on the satellite phone to let Gloria know about everything. In the meantime we set up the tents and tried to figure out sleeping arrangements. We had three two-man tents and ten people now. “Mom, Collin could share with us?” I suggested.

She turned red but nodded, “yeah, and we’re the two smallest people, easiest to share with.”
“We could probably get Bella in with us too I guess,” I mentioned. “Then James and Heather could share with Jacob and Edward?”

She giggled quietly to me, “They didn’t...?”

I nodded, “They named them all after Twilight characters.”

We both quietly laughed at that and then decided to share the plan with the others. It wasn’t great, but it was better than it could have been. We were actually able to make it a little better since Annie and Scott’s tent turned out to be a four-man tent. They traded with Collins tent and we had things worked out except sleeping bags. The adults ended up mostly giving those to the kids though and used blankets we had with us for them. It was a bit smelly, but we also used all the of the saddle blankets to insulate the tent floors a little bit.

Annie and Collin ended up working magic in the end to get a fire going and cooked some of our spare meals of freeze dried food, thankfully Collin had followed the Boy Scout Motto!

AGENT KLINE WAITED for six o’clock to hit so that they could go ahead and leave. Just as they were about to pull out of the lot his phone rang, “Kline,” he said automatically.

“Bob, this is Trevor.”

“What can I do for you?”

“I wanted to warn you all Hell is about to break loose at both of the Franchino’s Albuquerque locations. DEA is raiding them and wants backup from us.”

“You’re kidding me right?” He said, “We’re worried that Raimondo is going to try something with Megan tonight.”

“I’m not kidding, and I know that. I need most of your men to go to the main location where we think everything is still being held at.”

Bob thought for a moment, “Most of my men, is the order?”

“Most of your men.”

“Thank you for that boss.”

“Don’t thank me yet, I have a bad feeling about this... Worse than Vermont.”

“Well, hopefully you’re wrong.”

He hung up and said, “Shit!!!!” He looked over at Brian, “That was Trevor, they need ‘most of my men’ to go back up the locals and DEA.”

“So we have twelve operators, send seven?” He asked.

“Make it nine, but I want you to come with me, and your other two best men... Send the snipers with the other team, we hopefully won’t need anything like that but they will.”

“Fair enough... I don’t like it though,” Brian said.

“Neither do I.”

It took an hour to re-sort all of the vehicles, and in the end they had to rent a car to get Kline and the other three to get out to the ranch. The teams were more than a little unhappy with the situation since this was definitely more of a normal SWAT team operation, and not what they were specially trained for. Originally designed for counter-terrorism operations, they were the domestic equivalent of a Delta force team... Just trained in theory to arrest people if the opportunity arrived. Kline had attempted to get into the program early in his career, but there were few enough teams it was tough to land a spot. The training was as brutal as any, and he knew each of the men in the teams was worth five or six regular SWAT members apiece... Unfortunately so did whoever was running the DEA op.

He wondered for a moment whether or not there really would still be anything in the warehouses...

MOM MADE A point of unloading all of the guns that were accessible to the kids right after dinner. Apparently they trusted me enough to leave weapons loaded on a trip like this, but not other little kids.

I felt bad for Edward, besides the name, because he looked like he was still in a lot of pain every time he moved. His leg was at least broken I figured, if not more than that. We all sat around the fire that Annie and Collin had managed to make a nice warm blaze after dinner. Bella had attached herself to me and made me feel big for once. I learned she was four-and-a-half over dinner, and she did everything to try and impress me. Drying their clothes out had been one of the first priorities at the camp and it had eventually worked out that Bella was wearing a spare pair of sweats that Mom had me throw in. I fought my giggles as we tied the pants up and my sweatshirt was actually big on her!

She was leaned up next to me and Heather once again said, “There’s no possible way we can thank you all enough...”

“Yes there is,” Mom said with a smile, “stop thanking us, it was the right thing to do.” She said it in such a way that it came off sweet but implied she was tired of hearing it. Amazing what she can do!

“Alright,” Heather said with a smile.

Somehow we hadn’t finished the marshmallows the previous night and so we roasted them over the fire and I could see Edward, Bella, and Jacobs spirits all improve a bit over them. We’d offered Jacob another of my spare pairs of pants and a shirt but he acted like they were acidic or something. In the end he and Edward both ended up wrapped up in a couple of the space blankets while their clothes dried next to the fire. By eight-thirty all were starting to get tired and we began to try and get the sleeping arrangements in order.

Bella did insist on joining Mom, Collin, and I in our tent. She loved Kari enough on first sight that I let her have her and had a feeling I would be giving her to Bella for good the next day. We were both small enough that we could easily fit comfortably into my sleeping bag together, Mom had given hers to the boys, and Collin brought his in and shared with her. It was all innocent and needed by survival... I think.

Heather came by to kiss her little girl goodnight a short while later and kissed my forehead as well, “Thank you for being so good with her,” she whispered in my ear.

I blushed at that and just stayed quiet. After a while I went to sleep just as the bag was beginning to get kind of warm with two bodies heating it up.

RAY MOVED HIS men down the road quickly and across a fence. He made for the trees lining the drive up to the house as quickly as they could so they wouldn’t be spotted. He had just made it to a good hiding spot outside of the house when he felt his phone vibrate. He checked it and said, “Hello?”

“Codice Nero!” Was said and the phone went dead.

“Shit!” He said softly.

He dialed Greg, “Secure?”

“Secure.”

“Albuquerque location just called me with the code. We’re getting ready to get Megan, please handle the rest of the fall-out.” And he hung up.

It had long since been learned by many people that the shorter the transmission the better on something like this. He gathered his men back together really quick and said, “The stores in town are being raided right now. I’m guessing our hidden storage areas will go unnoticed, so we’ll just have to wait it out and move the product in a couple months. Of course, we’ll have to get those men out of there too at some point... That’s later though.” ‘Codice Nero,’ was the code for they were being raided, but all was secured and hidden. If it had been red instead it would have been the disaster code.

“Shit,” the men all swore with a couple of other Italian words thrown in from Nicholas.

“Yeah, but that’s later. Let’s get this taken care of now.” He told them.

He began giving them instructions on how they were going to enter the rear sliding door. Since it didn’t have a pole holding it shut from what he could tell, Bill was going to use a glass-cutting tool to make a hole to get his arm in to open the door. It looked like there might have been an alarm system from what they could tell, so he was going to let Danny in then to disable it before moving through the door. Hopefully after that they could just run upstairs, take care of both women, and then the kid would come with them.

All of that planned out they moved quietly to the side of the house and hoped the animals making noises was normal. One light was still on so they sat and waited in position.

GLORIA HAD BEEN more than a little nervous the night before, but for some reason tonight was even more so. She’d heard a few of the animals making noises and peered outside, but hadn’t seen anything. Hank and three of her men had come over to stay the night and were sleeping as far as she could tell in the hands room. She briefly considered going outside to check on the animals, but decided instead she needed her sleep.

‘I can’t believe they were in just the right spot today to save that family!’ She thought to herself. As soon as she finished talking with her she’d called up the Sheriff to let him know. They had just gotten the call about them missing and were getting ready to go look for them. It wouldn’t have been the first time that campers had gotten lost near her ranch, nor would it be the last. She was grateful this one was turning into a happy ending though – some certainly hadn’t.

With the news that they should be there by about eleven in the morning if all went well she’d made arrangements with the Sheriff to have some emergency personnel in place to help the family. It sounded like the boy was the most injured and the Mom seemed in marginal shape with a broken arm. Luckily she knew her husband had taught Collin well on the facts of camping in the wilderness... You never know what may happen so always bring extra. Being on horseback made that a lot easier too.

Gloria sighed and armed the entry alarms. She left the motion detectors off on the first floor though because she didn’t want to chance one of the hands setting it off. She’d forgotten to tell them about it. As she turned off her bedroom light she noticed it was already midnight and dreaded all that the day was going to bring.

AGENT KLINE, BRIAN, and his two other men Lance and Stan made it much later to the ranch than they hoped. Their rental car had taken time to get sorted out, and then the stupid thing had broken down ten minutes outside of town. It took another hour to get a replacement and finally get on the road.

He followed the road carefully and felt his blood chill. Along the side of the road was another car, one that looked freshly parked and not for an emergency.

“Shit,” he said, “that wasn’t there the other day, let’s check it out.”

It took them a few moments to quickly look it over and call in the license plate. The news that it was one of the Franchino’s goon’s cars was not welcome.

“You think they’ve already gotten there?” Brian asked.

“No idea... Let’s hoof it up there along the road,” he told him. All four of them were decked out in bulletproof vests and armed with MP5’s and the team members had flash bangs and gas canisters. Kline had borrowed from the team’s spares and was similarly attired, but only had his trusty pistol that he knew he shot best with. The four leapfrogged down the road as quickly as they could and arrived just in time to watch a last figure go through the side door into the house.
“Shit!” Stan said next to him over the LASH set.

“We’re going to need backup fast!” Brian said. Bob watched as he reached into a pocket and pulled out a cell phone. “Ryan, we need you here at the ranch fast. Get on a chopper and drop in, there’s no time to wait. Hostiles have entered the home and we are looking at a probable hostage situation.”

Kline couldn’t hear the other end of the conversation but the phone was quickly shut and stowed.

“Okay, the house has three entrances off the first floor, I want the four of us to cover them. Bob, you and I are going to cover that side door, Stan get on the front door, and Lance get to the back as quickly as you can. Move!”

The four men had just reached the positions when they could all see flashes in the windows and heard the loud reports of gunfire!

What did you think? Comments and/or Kudos are always appreciated! Thanks for reading!