Check Mate (17 page)

Lester parked, then unsnapped Mariah's seat belt. "Come on, Doc, get out."

"Where are we?" she asked.

"Looks like some rich guy's home away from home."

"What makes you think no one's here?" Apparently Lester had seen, as she had, the For Sale sign on the gate, the bright-red letters appearing dark-red in the moonlight.

"There was a For Sale sign out front," Lester replied. "Don't pretend you didn't see it."

He reached over and dragged her across the console, then pulled her out of the vehicle. She landed on her feet unsteadily. He grabbed her around the shoulders and forced her into step alongside him. When they reached the front door, he used the butt of his 9 mm to break the stained-glass panel. After sliding his arm through the opening, he unlocked the door from the other side and shoved it open.

All the while Lester pulled her deeper inside the house, Mariah didn't resist. Soon, she told herself. Very soon. He shoved her down on the sofa in the cathedral-ceilinged room, then shrugged off his coat and positioned himself on top of her. His foul breath fanned her face as his tried to kiss her. She turned her head just in time to avoid their lips making contact. Instead he wound up kissing her jaw.

When he started undoing her jacket, she squirmed against him. By the time he had her shirt unbuttoned, she was rubbing herself against his arousal.

"You're getting all excited, aren't you, Doc? You want some really good loving before you die, don't you?"

"You got that right, Les," she said breathlessly— a second before she kneed him in the groin. "I want some good loving—but not from you. Never from you!"

He howled like a wounded coyote. While he was yelping with pain, Mariah managed to knock him off her and onto the floor. Before he had a chance to recover, she used her feet to beat the living daylights out of him. The final blow landed along the side of his face and effectively knocked him senseless. Mariah knelt beside the unconscious Lester, then turned sideways so that she could reach inside his pockets, which was no easy task with her wrists bound together with the metal cuffs. She retrieved what she was fairly certain was the key to the cuffs, but she had a hell of a time inserting the key into the lock. After what seemed like an hour of hit and miss efforts, she finally managed to free herself from the handcuffs.

She raked her hand back into Lester's pants pocket and retrieved the keys to the SUV. But just as she rose to her feet, she heard a noise behind her. When she glanced over her shoulder she saw Lester staring up at her, his 9 mm pointed right at her back.

Eleven

Mariah had looked down the barrel of a gun before, had been faced with danger and even death. Quick and appropriate action had saved her life several times.

"Think you're pretty smart, don't you, Doc?" Lester's hand holding the 9 mm trembled ever so slightly. "Well, you're not. All you did was make me mad and when I'm mad, I'm mean."

Breathe deeply. Stay calm. He's not going to shoot you. Not yet. He wants to make you pay for your actions. Don't do anything hasty. Wait until you're close enough to strike. There was no doubt in Mariah's mind that Lester would give her the opportunity to stop him before he killed her. He was too determined to rape her. He wouldn't kill her yet.

Not until he'd satisfied his sick needs.

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"Nothing to say?" Lester held out his free hand and motioned to her by crooking his index finger. "Come just a little closer."

She turned around and took several tentative steps toward him.

"That's close enough," he told her. "Now take off your coat."

She removed the coat. If she'd been a few feet closer, she would have tossed it at him, but she was too far away for the tactic to have been effective.

"Now strip, starting with your shirt and bra."

Marian took her time unbuttoning her shirt, letting Lester's sexual tension build. As she removed her shirt and the frigid air hit her naked arms and shoulders, she shivered. With Lester's gaze glued to her breasts, she was able to move forward a few steps. Instead of removing her bra next, she eased her belt from the loops on the waistband of her slacks.

Realizing she wasn't following his instructions about the order in which he wanted her to disrobe, Lester came toward her, just a few steps, but enough to bring him within range.

"Not the pants next, dammit! Take off your bra. Now!"

Mariah grinned, a seductive, come-hither look in her eyes, and while Lester tried to figure out why she was smiling, she took that final step to put her in a perfect position to act. Before Lester knew what was happening, Mariah brandished her belt, using it like a whip. The thick, supple leather hit Lester's gun hand, snapping loudly as it made contact with his flesh. He yelped in pain and the 9 mm Glock fell from his hand and hit the floor with a resounding thud. Shock registered on Lester's face, then horror, just as Mariah flung herself forward and down, her hands reaching for the weapon lying only a feet inches from Lester's feet.

Her fingers touched the Clock's cold metal surface. Lester bent over and reached for the gun, but Mariah managed to grasp it and pull it to her. He raised his foot, intending to kick Mariah, but she nipped over just in time to avoid his boot connecting with her face. Cursing a blue streak, Lester lunged at her. She rolled over a couple of times. He landed on the floor beside her instead of on top of her as he'd planned. She held the gun in both hands and pointed it directly at his heart.

"Damn bitch!" He growled the words as he rose up and hurled himself at her.

Mariah didn't hesitate, she pulled the trigger— once—and the bullet entered Lester's chest, missing his heart by several inches. As his wiry body came down over her, blood oozing from the wound and dripping onto the floor, she fired a second shot. This one hit the mark. Lester's heart. He dropped like a ten-ton stone. Mariah rolled out of the way as his body crashed to the floor. His blood splattered over her. She jumped to her feet and moved cautiously toward his lifeless body. Using her foot, she rolled him over onto his back. His sightless eyes stared up at the cathedral ceiling. Mariah let out a long, deep breath, relief spreading through her as the rush of adrenaline pumping through her body began to subside.

Ignoring the dead man lying nearby, Mariah picked up her belt, put it on and slid the gun into her hip holster. Not a perfect fit, put close enough. Focusing on what she had to do, she picked up her discarded shirt, then walked over to the sofa, lifted a cotton knit afghan lying across the back and used it to clean Lester's blood off her skin. She hastily put on her shirt before searching the room for a telephone. When she spotted a phone and lifted the receiver, there was no dial tone. Undoubtedly the owners had had the phone disconnected. And her digital phone was back at the cabin in her Chevy Trail-Blazer.

After putting on her coat, she went outside and got in Burgess's Saturn. She wasn't sure she could back-track to where Agnes and Oliver were holding Jake, but she damn well intended to try. She had two choices—either try to save Jake on her own or risk wasting time by hunting for the nearest town and a telephone. By the time she could get to a town, use a phone and get assistance from fellow agents, it might be too late for Jake. Agnes and Oliver planned to move him to a new location at daybreak. Her best bet was to find her way back to where he was now being held and rescue him before he was moved again. Once there, she could use the micro-transmitter to alert the bureau of the location so they could pick up Agnes and Oliver.

As she started the SUV and turned it around, she wondered if Agnes and Oliver would wonder what was taking Lester so long. Probably not. They had known he intended to rape her before killing her. They probably didn't expect him back for hours. If she was lucky, the gruesome twosome would be asleep and Burgess would have been left to guard Jake. She'd have to park the SUV on the road and walk to the cabin, then break in and get to Jake without alerting the others. And if necessary, she was prepared to kill anyone who got in her way.

***

Agnes Payne stood over Jake where he was manacled to the ladder-back wooden chair in the corner of the living room. "How does it feel to know that Dr. Brooks has abandoned you, that she chose to save herself and apparently doesn't give a damn what happens to you?"

Jake glared at the manipulative, conniving woman whose ruthless ambition had turned Henry Bloomfield's scientific

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experiment into a nightmare for his children. When he'd heard a vehicle leaving earlier, he'd questioned Burgess about Marian, but the man had told him nothing. Then for the past few minutes, Agnes had been trying to torture him with her comments about Mariah's disloyalty. He'd tried to shut out her voice, tried to tell himself that maybe Marian had escaped, maybe she was safe now. But he knew better. Marian hadn't abandoned him. She'd been taken away—by Lester.

Jake closed his eyes as Agnes's voice droned on and on, but he could not shut out the pain that gripped him.

Mariah alone with Lester. Her hands cuffed and without a weapon. The little monster would rape Mariah first, then kill her. In all his life, Jake had never known such agony. Every instinct within him wanted to growl like a beast and rip Ag nes, Oliver and Burgess apart with his bare hands. Then he wanted to track down Lester and kill him slowly, painfully.

The frightening part of this scenario playing inside his head was that he knew he would feel no guilt at killing them, that the primitive, animal side of his nature would actually enjoy it.

Jake had cared for many people. He loved his adoptive parents and his brother, Zach. He'd loved Tara once. And he loved his newfound siblings. And the child in him loved his biological parents. But the love he felt for Mariah surpassed any other love he'd ever known. He didn't understand how it was possible to love someone so fervently, so completely, in such a brief span of time. But he did. The thought of living without Mariah was more than he could bear.

Until he'd realized that she was probably dead, he hadn't known the depth of his feelings for her. But now—too late to tell her—he knew.

You can't fall apart, he told himself. It's too late to save Mariah, but you can still save Gideon. And you can bring down the Coalition and make Agnes and Oliver and everyone involved with Code Proteus pay for what they've done

—pay dearly.

"He's shut you out, my dear," Oliver Grimble told his wife. "Our Jake seems to have developed the ability to totally control his mind. It will be difficult, if not impossible to ever reprogram him. I see that more plainly now. I should have known that as an adult, he would be the one out of all the children who would be able to resist our control."

Agnes reached out, grabbed Jake by the chin and forced him to look up at her. "But we can control you, can't we, Jake? As long as we have Gideon, you will do as you're told."

Jake ignored her completely.

She slapped him on one cheek and then the other. "Respond, damn you!"

He continued ignoring her.

"There are ways to make you suffer. How will you feel watching your brother being tortured?"

The muscles in Jake's jaw tightened, but other than that minuscule reaction, he remained deadly silent, not allowing Agnes the pleasure of a reaction.

"Be that way," she told Jake. "Sooner or later, I'll break you." She turned to Burgess. "Leave him here in this chair all night. Oliver and I will take the bedroom. You can bunk down on the sofa, but keep one eye open until Lester returns from the little errand we sent him to do."

Agnes eyed Jake. He didn't move a muscle. She huffed loudly, then turned to her husband. "Let's get a few hours sleep. I want to leave here at daybreak."

Oliver followed his wife into the bedroom, leaving Jake alone with Burgess, who turned and walked over to the sofa.

He jerked the one tattered plaid pillow from where it rested in the center of the couch and placed it on the armrest, then lay down. He put his head on the pillow and propped his feet on the opposite sofa arm.

"You behave yourself," Burgess said. "I don't want any trouble out of you."

Jake didn't respond. Just what sort of trouble did the man think he could be with his arms twisted behind the back of the chair, his wrists tightly cuffed and his ankles bound with rope? Apparently Burgess had left the leg irons behind and been forced to make do with rope. But the rope was completely effective. Jake wasn't going anywhere. Not without help. And he had to admit the truth—there was no one to help him. If Marian was dead—and there was a very good
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possibility that Lester had killed her—nobody knew where he was. He was completely on his own.

God, Mariah, I hope you didn't suffer. I hope— Emotion lodged in Jake's throat. He wasn't the type of man prone to tears, but at this very moment he longed to cry. Crying might ease the agony trapped deep inside him.