Frustrated and upset, Rafe smacked the backs of the front seats with his open hands. “Aargh! You’re impossible, lady.”

  “So my late husband often told me.” She was smiling over her shoulder at him. “It never did him much good.”

  “I gathered. I’m not going to talk you out of this, am I?”

  “Not likely. A workman without the right tools is at a disadvantage before he starts.”

  “Can’t argue with that.” Rafe was nodding slowly, mentally expanding and altering his plans. Since the escape everything had been in flux anyway so he’d have to remain flexible, even if it meant listening to this civilian.

  “Hey!” Hannah interjected. “Don’t I get a vote?”

  Rafe’s “No” was echoed by the older woman.

  “This is not a democracy,” Lucy added. “I’m calling the shots.”

  Rafe almost laughed aloud when Hannah made a face and said, “I suppose it’s too late to vote you out of office or arrange a coup.”

  Chuckling quietly, Lucy said, “Honey, it was too late the minute you came to live with me. I promised God I’d always look after you and I intend to keep that promise. Period.”

  Hannah huffed. “You sure have a funny way of showing it.”

  “Not at all,” Rafe said, looking to Lucy to be certain she understood what he was trying to tell Hannah. “Calm down and think this through. Your Gram and I have experience and skills that you don’t. It’s nothing against you, it’s simply a fact. If you’re half as smart as I think you are, you’ll listen to us and let us make the important decisions.”

  “Put my life in the hands of two people who are such great liars that I was totally fooled? That doesn’t sound like a good idea to me.”

  Sobering, he pushed away and sank back into the rear seat. “Good or not, that’s how it is.”

  * * *

  Fuming and struggling to accept the night-and-day difference in her grandmother, Hannah barely took notice of their surroundings until Gram missed the turn into their familiar driveway. Hannah’s head whipped around, her gaze pinned on their house as they pulled farther and farther away. “Hey. I thought we were going home.”

  “We are.”

  “But you just passed...”

  Lucy’s hands were fisted on the steering wheel, her concentration as much to the rear as forward. “Something was off. I don’t know what it was, but my instincts have always been good. We’ll go around the block and get a fresh look.”

  Hannah flinched as Rafe leaned forward again and asked, “What am I looking for? What did you notice?”

  “I’m not sure. Call it a subconscious warning. I know better than to ignore it.”

  “Terrific.” Hannah straightened in the bucket seat and faced forward, trying to process the nightmare her life had become in the space of a few hours. She supposed it was normal for her to resist accepting such a drastic change in Gram but this was bordering on lunacy.

  Finally, she formed coherent enough thoughts to express them. “Look, you guys, we’ve lived in that house for years. I know what it looks like and I didn’t see anything odd when we drove by, okay? Let’s just grab whatever we need and get out of this neighborhood before Fleming’s men figure out we’re here.”

  Instead of arguing with her, Gram gave a slight nod and kept driving. “The black SUV down that side street. Did you see it?”

  “Who, me?” Hannah asked.

  “No,” Lucy said, “I was talking to our friend in the back seat.”

  “Yes,” Rafe replied. “And the old pickup in a driveway right behind it, too. Could be either, or both.”

  Listening, Hannah felt so left out she was ready to scream, or cry, perhaps in unison. “Stop it. Just stop it. You’re scaring me.”

  As if he, too, was anxious, Thor laid his big head on her shoulder. She could feel the canine trembling and felt responsible for some of his angst. Sensitive animals picked up on human emotions as well as those of their own species, and she’d probably been sending out waves of fear despite the outward calm she was trying so desperately to project.

  Hannah laid her cheek against the side of Thor’s muzzle, cupped his face and consciously slowed her breathing. She might not understand people as well as she liked, but it was easy for her to connect with the spirits of animals. Maybe that was because words weren’t necessary, although a softly spoken “good boy” could have a beneficial effect on almost any canine.

  As a child she’d missed her parents when they’d had to be away for work, which finally made sense now that she knew their secret occupations. Before they had been killed in the plane crash, they’d relocated the family every couple of years and Hannah had repeatedly been the outcast, the new kid in school, so she’d made friends with animals, particularly dogs, to fill the void. In retrospect, she could see the plus side of that choice and it comforted her slightly.

  Glancing over at Gram, Hannah felt a deep sense of loss, not of her actual grandmother but of the person she’d thought her grandma was; the safe homebody who had taken her in as a teen and finally given her stability and security. The one who had loved and accepted her wholly, without reservation.

  And the one who had lied to her from the beginning, she added, blinking back tears. She could understand the subterfuge when she’d been an impressionable teen but she was a mature adult now. If these complicated circumstances had not warranted a confession, would Gram ever have told her the truth?

  What else was she still holding back? Hannah wondered. Finding out that she’d been raised in a family that was all pretense had been bad enough. Was there more? Was Lucy continuing to pretend or was what Hannah was seeing now her real persona? Did someone who had lived a double life have the capacity to revert to the kind of unvarnished truth normal people took for granted?

  Hannah would have asked that question aloud if Lucy hadn’t abruptly pulled into a long, narrow dirt driveway and stopped at the end. “Where are we? What are you doing?”

  “Remember when you were little and used to come visit me and Grandpa? We let you play in the wooded lot behind the house, but the old cabin back there was always padlocked.”

  “Right.”

  “Well, there was a good reason.” Lucy climbed out. “This is it. Follow me.”

  “What about Thor?” Not knowing what lay ahead or how long they’d be away from the car, Hannah was concerned for the dog.

  “Leash him and bring him. We won’t be coming back.”

  “What? I thought we were here to pick up supplies.”

  “We are,” Lucy said. “And to ditch my car.”

  Although she was proceeding to let the big dog out, Hannah felt trapped in a bad dream, one that kept getting creepier and creepier. Reality had morphed into a hazy scenario that melded childhood memories with the solid reality of a nondescript little wooden building that had sat, undisturbed, in the wooded plot for as long as Hannah could remember. Surely, that couldn’t be where Gram had stored survival equipment. It didn’t look big enough for more than a couple of backpacks and maybe a folding cot.

  Keeping Thor on a short leash was not only sensible under the circumstances, his proximity gave Hannah a feeling of security and boy, did she need it. One of her companions was her beloved grandmother who was not the benevolent person she’d been pretending to be. The other was either a hardened criminal she’d met in the prison or an undercover cop who did such an amazing job of faking his anti-social persona he’d been able to convince prisoners and guards alike. So which was he? And what was she going to do with the older woman who had been playing the part of a normal run-of-the-mill senior citizen?

  Hannah was more than confused, she was disappointed and disheartened. Nothing was as she’d thought and nothing would ever be the same again, not now that she knew the truth about her family. Part of her wanted to be proud of their patriotism. A more personal take on the situation had her feeling so bereft she didn’t want anything to do with anybody, particularly the two people she presently found herself stuck with.

  Halting abruptly as they approached the small cabin, Hannah kept Thor close at heel. Lucy, in the lead, didn’t seem to notice the change but Rafe did. He approached closer and reached out. His hand almost touched her shoulder when the dog began to growl and bare his teeth.

  Rafe froze, speaking quietly. “Lucy. We have a situation.”

  The spry, older woman paused and looked back. “What’s wrong?”

  “I suspect your granddaughter is about to rebel.”

  “I wondered what took her so long.” She smiled. “Hannah, honey, I know this is a lot to take in but you need to trust me. We can get out of this in one piece if we work together, and that means following my lead.”

  “I don’t even know who you are anymore.” Her narrowed gaze shifted to Rafe. “And you. You’re probably as bad as Deuce Fleming. Maybe worse, since you’re apparently playing both sides against each other.”

  “I told you, I’m one of the good guys.”

  “Right.” Hannah’s voice was rising. “And Gram told me she was a regular grandmother living out her golden years after retiring from her job as a county clerk. I don’t know who to believe but one thing I am sure of—I’m not getting in any deeper than I am already. I don’t have to protect Gram anymore and I sure don’t have to defend you.” She set her jaw and tried to keep from sounding hysterical. “I quit. Here and now. I know where I am. You two can go off on whatever idiotic mission you think is necessary. I’m going to walk out of these woods with my dog, turn myself in to the police and explain everything.”

  “No, you are not,” Rafe said. The underlying menace in his tone gave Hannah the shivers. She looked to Lucy, expecting moral support, and was shocked to see her shaking her head.

  “Gram?”

  “You need to do this our way to have the greatest chance of survival,” Lucy said. “I don’t trust your friend here any farther than I could throw him, but we need him as backup and to give us a connection to Fleming, providing we’re able to locate him under amiable circumstances.”

  “Why go looking for trouble?” Hannah was starting to show panic.

  “Because an organization like Fleming’s isn’t going to just leave us alone after what’s happened. They’ll have to punish you to save face and believe me, it won’t be a slap on the wrist. If you were anybody else’s granddaughter I’d recommend witness protection but even that isn’t foolproof. No matter how careful the US Marshals Service is, a good percentage of people with new identities are eventually located and eliminated. This isn’t a kid’s game we’re playing, Hannah. This is life and death. There are no do-overs. The minute you agreed to take part in the jailbreak, you were permanently committed.”

  “They said they were going to kidnap and kill you if I didn’t cooperate.”

  Lucy pulled Hannah into a motherly embrace and gently patted her back. “That’s partly my fault for not telling you the truth long ago. If you’d known my real history, you might have come to me with your problems instead of getting sucked in by a clever crook.”

  “He had pictures of you,” Hannah reiterated. “Lots of them. He showed them to me on a phone somebody had smuggled into prison.”

  “Meaning he had people on the inside, like your friend here claimed,” Lucy reminded her. “That’s another reason we have to give this guy the benefit of the doubt.”

  A branch broke in the distance. Thor growled. Hannah jumped. Lucy thrust her away and deftly inserted a key into the padlock that secured the cabin door. She stepped back out of the way and gestured. “Everybody inside. Now.”

  “But...”

  Hannah found herself being swept up and half carried through the open doorway by Rafe. Lucy was right behind them while Thor circled at the end of his leash.

  A shout echoed. Another answered. Hannah was struck speechless by confusion and raw fear. What she still wanted to do was turn herself in, but it was looking as though that was no longer an option. Whoever was outside the cabin was approaching, and judging by the noise they were making they weren’t very concerned about being spotted or reported.

  That made sense. Nobody else would know where they were unless Gram used her cell phone to call for help and chances of that happening were slim.

  Thoughts whirling, Hannah belatedly realized she’d left her own purse behind in the van when they’d switched cars. She didn’t have her phone and had no identification with her. The only defense she had left was the novice K-9. And her own wits.

  Rafe turned to slide a heavy timber across the weak-looking door to bar it. Hannah stood motionless in the center of the fifteen by fifteen cabin, unsure what, if anything, she could do to help Lucy.

  That question was answered in seconds. Lucy lifted a tarp, levered open a trap door and pointed. “Go.”

  “I can’t. We can’t.” Hannah pulled Thor closer. “He hasn’t learned to climb ladders.”

  “I’m not leaving you behind,” Lucy said, clearly determined.

  Rafe stepped up. “Help me sling him over my shoulders. I’ll carry him down.”

  Hannah’s loud “No” blended with her grandmother’s. Voices outside were growing louder. Something solid hit the cabin door so hard it jarred the whole building and knocked dust from the low rafters.

  The men outside attacked the wooden door again and again until the air inside the cabin was clouded with swirling particles of dirt. Hannah coughed.

  Rafe stripped off his jacket and thrust it at her. “A sling. Make the dog a sling. And hurry!”

  Her hands were shaking so badly he had to help her tie the arms together behind the dog’s shoulders. “Keep tension on the leash,” he shouted. “Here we go.”

  EIGHT

  Lying prone, Rafe fisted the knotted arms of the jacket and began to lower the dog through the trap door. At this point he half expected the frightened animal to snap at him but Thor made the short drop easily. Lucy was at the bottom to catch him and Hannah scrambled down next.

  “Pull that door in after you,” Lucy ordered Rafe. “Make sure it latches in place and push that rod through the U-bolts.”

  As he did as he was told, he wondered what possible advantage there was to locking themselves in a subterranean chamber with potential assassins waiting for them above. It didn’t take long for him to realize he’d been underestimating the older woman. Not only was she opening the door to an underground passage, she looked pleased with herself.

  He huffed. “I don’t believe it.”

  That made Lucy smile. “Believe it, mister.” She started down the dark narrow corridor, patting the walls as she went. “Keep up and I’ll have us out of this in a jiffy.”

  “This is why you didn’t want me to play in the shack?” Hannah asked softly.

  “Among other things. It needed to look unused. Derelict. We didn’t want anybody else messing with it, either. It took forever to set this up .”

  “Where does this passageway lead?” Rafe asked.

  “My house. Once we enter the basement, stealth will be crucial. I assume all of Fleming’s men followed us into the woods, but they may have been smart enough to leave someone behind. If that’s the case, we can’t take a chance on him sounding an alarm.”

  Rafe knew what she was implying and hoped it didn’t come to a confrontation under these circumstances. As far as Deuce Fleming knew, Rafe was a fellow escapee. To catch him in the company of Hannah and her grandmother would cast him in a different light, particularly if he couldn’t convince the gang that he was keeping the women with him as hostages.

  He reached out to tap Lucy’s shoulder. “I have a proposal for you.”

  “No time for making deals, mister,” she said.

  A keypad lit up under her touch and she punched in a series of numbers. Rafe tried to see them over her shoulder and failed, not that there was any proof he’d need the combination to that lock again, anyway.

  Lucy began to ease open the door into the cellar. A musty odor assailed him. Hannah seemed to be more at ease now that she was about to enter familiar space and, consequently, Thor was more settled, too. To Rafe’s relief the ambient light from high windows showed a normal staircase as an exit.

  The only audible breathing came from the panting canine. Hannah had him on a short leash and was tiptoeing along behind her grandmother. There were no sounds from the house above and apparently nobody close by outside, either.

  Falling back, Rafe gave them plenty of space while he cast around for a makeshift weapon. The retired secret agent was undoubtedly armed with the gun from her car and Hannah had the dog to protect her, meaning he was the only one walking into who-knows-what empty-handed. That hindrance he intended to remedy ASAP.

  He was reaching for a heavy wrench atop a tool bench when Lucy glanced back. Rafe froze. Was she going to ditch him here and now because she didn’t want him armed? He raised both hands, palms facing toward her. “I just want to be able to defend myself.”

  “Second drawer down, far left,” Lucy said in a hoarse whisper, “and keep it quiet.”

  Cautiously, Rafe followed her instructions. The drawer contained a tangle of fishing line, old lures and floats and plastic packets of snelled hooks. He pushed them aside and spotted a long narrow sheath. A fish filleting knife.

  He picked it up and displayed it, waiting for Lucy’s acknowledgement. At her nod he threaded the leather sheath through his belt. Any worry he’d had about whether or not she trusted him was negated.

  The shocked expression on Hannah’s face, however, gave him pause. She looked as if she was trying to decide if she should conk him with the nearest shovel or scream and make a run for it. To her credit, she did neither.

  The three humans and one dog gathered at the top of the interior stairs. Lucy eased open the door and peered out. Rafe held his breath. Then she was through and moving quickly past the kitchen and down a hallway with Hannah right behind her.