Rocky Mountain Rescue

Maybe this was the end of her world, she thought. Her husband, Sam’s son, Sammy Giardino, had been battling his father for months now. Maybe those arguments had erupted into all-out war and Sammy was trying to wrest control of the family “business.” She wouldn’t bet against her father-in-law in that conflict; Sammy only thought he was tough. His father was the hardest, coldest man she’d ever known. He’d even pledged to kill his own daughter after she’d testified against him in federal court.

When she reached the top of the stairs, Carlo shifted against her. “They’re not shooting anymore,” he said.

Carlo was right; the gunfire had ceased. Muffled voices came from the back of the house, but they sounded more like normal conversation than angry outbursts. Should she move toward them and try to find out what was going on?

She stroked her son’s soft blond hair. “What did the men look like, Carlo? The ones with the guns?”

“They were really big, and they had helmets covering their faces.”

Not any of the thugs Sam Giardino employed, then. She’d never known them to wear helmets. These men sounded like law enforcement, maybe a SWAT team. They’d found Sam’s hiding place at last. Would they take Sammy away this time, too? She had no idea if federal agents could tie her husband to any of the Giardino family crimes. Women weren’t supposed to concern themselves with the “business” side of things. In any case, Stacy never wanted to know.

She started down the stairs. She’d expected to meet others moving toward the safe room. Where was Sam’s mistress, Veronica, and the cook, Angela, and the guards whose job it was to protect the women? Surely the cops wouldn’t have gotten to them all.

But here she was, all alone with Carlo. Nothing new about that. Even in a room full of Giardinos she was the outsider, the one who wasn’t one of them. They tolerated her and she tolerated them, but none of them would have been sorry to see the last of her.

How ironic to think she might be the one to survive this day. To escape. The thought made her heart beat faster. For four years, all she’d wanted was to get away from the hold the Giardinos had on her. She wanted to start over, somewhere safe with her son, where no one knew her and she knew no one. She didn’t need other people in her life; she only needed Carlo.

As soon as the coast was clear—as soon as whoever had attacked the house had left—she’d find a car and drive as far away as she could. Maybe she’d even go overseas somewhere. She’d get a new identity, and a job. She’d rent an apartment, or maybe a little house. Carlo could go to school and they’d have a normal life. Just the two of them. Dreams like that had kept her sane all these years she’d been trapped. The idea that she might finally make them come true renewed her strength, and she all but ran toward the basement.

The basement was dark, but she didn’t dare risk turning on the light. She groped along the wall, toward the hidden door at the back that led into the safe room. Inside, she’d be able to watch the other rooms in the house on closed-circuit television and see what was going on. The room had its own generator, its own ventilation, air-conditioning and heating system and enough food and water to sustain a whole family for a month. She and Carlo wouldn’t need to leave until she was sure they would be safe.

She was halfway across the room, feeling her way around a stack of packing boxes, when she froze, heart climbing her throat at the sound of footsteps on the stairs. The tread was heavy—a big man—and he was moving slowly. Stealthily.

She cradled Carlo’s face against her chest. “Shh,” she whispered in his ear.

Light flooded the room. She pressed herself against the wall, hidden by the boxes, and blinked at the brightness. The scrape of a shoe against the concrete floor was as loud as a cannon shot to her attuned ears. She held her breath, and prayed Carlo would keep still. Her arms ached from carrying him, but she held on tighter still.

“Who’s there?” The question came from a man, the voice deep and commanding. A voice she didn’t recognize. “Come out and you won’t get hurt.”

She crouched lower and peered between a gap in the boxes at a man dressed in black fatigues and body armor. He carried an assault rifle at the ready, but had flipped up the visor on his helmet to scan the basement.

Carlo squirmed in her arms and whimpered. She patted his back. “Shh. Shh.”

“Who’s there?” the man demanded. He swung the gun toward her hiding place. The sight of the weapon aimed at her turned her blood to ice.

“Don’t shoot!” she squeaked. Then with more assurance, “I have a child with me and I’m unarmed.”

“Move out where I can see you. Slowly. And keep your hands where I can see them.”

Holding Carlo firmly to her, she moved forward. The boy squirmed around to look, his little heart racing against her own.

The man kept his weapon trained on her as she moved out from behind the boxes. “Are you alone?”

“Yes.”

He glanced around, as if expecting someone else to loom up behind her. Apparently satisfied she’d told the truth, he aimed the gun toward the floor. “Who are you?” he asked.

She met his gaze directly, letting him see she would not be bullied. “Who are you?”

“Marshal Patrick Thompson, U.S. Marshals Service,” he said.

“Stacy Franklin,” she said. Franklin was her maiden name, but she didn’t have any desire to introduce herself to this lawman as one of the Giardinos. “And this is my son, Carlo.”

“Hello, Carlo.” He nodded to the boy. His expression was still wary, but he had kind eyes, blue, with lines fanning out from the corners, as if he’d spent a lot of time outdoors, squinting into the sun. Carlo stared at him, wide-eyed, his fingers in his mouth.

Thompson turned his attention back to Stacy. “I’ll need you to come with me,” he said.

“Come with you where?”

“First, upstairs. We’ll take a preliminary statement from you, and then I’ll need you to come with me to our headquarters in Telluride.”

“Are you arresting me? I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“No, I’m not arresting you, but you are a witness, and we may need to take you into protective custody.”

She had no intention of letting anyone take her into custody, but she kept that to herself. She knew the law; though Sammy had been the one with the law degree, Stacy had written all his papers and helped him study for all his tests. She’d read the textbooks and listened to the online lectures and studied alongside him for the bar exam. None of it was knowledge the Giardinos thought a woman needed to know, but she would use it to her advantage now.

“Why are you here?” she asked.

Marshal Thompson didn’t answer. He motioned for her to move ahead of him. “Come with me upstairs and we’ll talk more.”

She climbed the stairs, aware of him right behind her, a broad-shouldered, black-clad guardian who smelled strongly of cordite and hot steel from his weapon, which must have recently been fired.

He led her into the living room, where other men milled about, taking pictures and measurements. She sat. Carlo scrambled out of her arms and retrieved one of his toy cars and began driving it along the arm of the sofa.

Marshal Thompson removed his helmet and sat on the arm of the sofa, his weapon on the table beside him. He had short, light brown hair and he looked tired—as tired as Stacy suddenly felt. “What is your relationship to the Giardino family?” he asked.

She thought about lying, saying she was a maid. But they’d check her story and learn her real identity soon enough. She lifted her chin, defiant. “I’m married to Sammy Giardino.”

His gaze shifted to Carlo, who was making motor noises, guiding the toy car along a seam in the leather upholstery. “This is Sammy’s son?”

“Yes.” She patted his chubby leg in the corduroy overalls he was already outgrowing. He was her son—Sammy had contributed half his DNA, but she had given the boy her heart and soul. He was the one thing that had kept her sane in this crazy household.

“How long have you been in this house?”

She should probably demand a lawyer, or refuse to answer his questions altogether. But she didn’t really care about the answers. The sooner she told him what he wanted to know, the sooner he’d let her go. “We arrived on Sunday. Five days ago.” Five days of unrelenting tension in which Sammy alternately sulked and sniped, while his father looked smug. Visitors came and went at all hours, and twice she’d awakened deep in the night to hear arguments between father and son, shouting matches she’d fully expected to end in a hail of bullets.

“Why did you come to Telluride?” Thompson asked.

Because I didn’t have the option of staying behind, she thought. “We came on vacation,” she said. “To ski.” Carlo had loved the snow. He’d spent two half days in kiddie ski school, thrilled by the rare opportunity to hang out with boys and girls his own age. It was tough to arrange playdates when you lived with a mobster.

“Who else is in the house?”

“A lot of people. I don’t even know all their names.” This wasn’t exactly true, but she was wary of telling Thompson anything he didn’t already know, like the fact that her fugitive father-in-law had been here. If Sam had managed to escape, she didn’t want him finding out she was the one who had betrayed him.

“Any other women?” Thompson asked.

Why did Thompson care about the women? “There was the cook, Angie. A woman named Veronica.” No point explaining her role as Sam’s latest mistress. “My sister-in-law, Elizabeth Giardino.” Elizabeth had been a big surprise, showing up for lunch today as if her father had never threatened to murder her.