“Money.”
“Yeah, but it’s not enough to risk getting our asses thrown in the pen for life. Blowing the bridge, holding the whole town hostage—this can go to hell so many different ways it ain’t funny. Without even thinking hard, I can come up with four or five better ways of getting what those boys want, less risk all the way around.” Billy kept his voice low, so low it wouldn’t carry beyond the confines of the tent.
They were getting paid very well. Teague intended to take something off the top, but the others didn’t need to know about that.
Honor among thieves
was a myth, and he wasn’t about to start perpetuating it. As far as the other guys knew, they were getting a cool one hundred thousand, to be divided four ways, twenty-five for each of them for a few days’ work, with Toxtel picking up all the expenses for this massive charade.
“The risk to us is minimal,” he said. “We don’t let ourselves be seen, and none of those people over there have any idea we’re involved.”
“Those two yahoos from Chicago know we’re involved.”
“You’re assuming they’ll be alive to tell.”
A quick grin crossed Billy’s face, then just as quickly faded. “They’re not alive, they can’t pay us.”
“It’s choreographed. We’ll get paid when the woman over there makes arrangements to give them what they want. Toxtel wanted to wait until he actually had whatever it is to make payment, but I nixed that. He has what he wants, he’d put a bullet in all of us without blinking an eye, to keep from paying. So we get paid first.”
“He trusts us to stay around after we get paid?”
“I doubt it, but he doesn’t have a choice.”
“When you gonna do it?”
When did he intend to kill Toxtel and Goss? Teague thought about it. “After they get what they want. If they’re willing to pay so much money to get their hands on whatever it is, we might be interested in it, too. See, a time will be set for the handover, because we’ll have to get everything packed up and cover our tracks so we can get the hell out of Dodge as soon as it’s done. It’ll take a while for those people to work their way across the stream and get help, and in the meantime, we’re busy vanishing. Once Toxtel has what he wants, they’ll pull back, too, and we’ll be waiting for them. Pop them, leave their bodies. They’re the only two known to be involved. We’re clear.”
“So who killed them, then, if they’re the only two?”
“Most logical assumption is they had a third partner who double-crossed them. It’ll work. Trust me.”
Billy was silent then as he examined Teague’s wound. “This needs stitches,” he finally said, “but it’s stopped bleeding. Come morning, you want to take a trip to the clinic in town? It’s not a bullet wound, so it won’t be reported.”
“I might do that. I’ll decide then.” Some antibiotics might come in handy, plus the doc could give him some real painkillers. People took falls in these mountains all the time; nothing unusual there.
Billy dabbed some antibiotic ointment on the cut, taped a pad over it. “I hope we haven’t bit off more than we can chew. People died over there, Teague; when the lid blows off and the cops get in here, they’ll pull in every state investigator on the job, plus some Federal ones if they need to. This will be big news, and there’ll be some big dogs on our asses.”
“They may figure out more people were involved, but I’ve been careful not to be seen with those two guys, and nothing is written down, no phone records to worry about. If they’re dead, they can’t involve us. We’re getting paid in cash. Unless we screw up and let ourselves be identified, we’re home free.”
Billy thought it over, then nodded. “I can see that. But—damn! Who thought of this shit to begin with?”
“Toxtel. He and Goss went in thinking they were the toughest guys around, and found out they weren’t. Toxtel has a real hard-on for some guy over there who pulled a shotgun on him. Don’t guess he’s ever been on the losing end before, because he’s got a big ego and he can’t see around it.”
Billy grunted. They’d both seen it before, and nine times out of ten the situation turned into a clusterfuck. If Teague hadn’t seen a way he and his boys could dance their way out, he wouldn’t have touched this with a barge pole.
“How long you think this will take?”
“I’m figuring four or five days, at least,” Teague said. Toxtel might think the locals would quickly fold and throw Cate Nightingale to the wolves, but Teague knew better. These people were stubborn, and they would close ranks around her. At some point, though, the price of continued resistance would become too high—and then Ms. Nightingale herself would give in and give these boys whatever it was of theirs that she was hiding.
The only possibility of a fast outcome that he saw was that she might cave first thing, but in his experience, people who tried to screw someone else in the first place weren’t real big on civic duty, or whatever you wanted to call it. No, if she was trying to score on something crooked, she wouldn’t give up right away. She would lie, she’d deny, she’d stall, until she thought she’d gone as long as possible without her neighbors turning on her—then she’d start making excuses, trying to explain and make herself look as good as possible, and ultimately she’d cave.
Teague hoped she’d hold out for a while, though—just long enough for him to get to feeling better and get that bastard Creed taken care of.
Creed was going to regret pulling that trigger tonight. Payback was a bitch.
CATE SLEEPILY OPENED HER EYES AND FOUND HERSELF staring at the back of
She didn’t think he’d moved at all since going to sleep, and this evidence of his exhaustion filled her with both tenderness and a fierce sense of protectiveness. She wanted to lay her head against his back, but she remembered the cuts he’d suffered and didn’t want to hurt his wounds. She stared at his shaggy hair and wanted to run her fingers through it, but he needed all the sleep he could get and she didn’t want to wake him. She wanted to slide her hand inside the too-big waistband of his borrowed jeans and explore the bulge she’d seen in his underwear when he changed clothes, and the abrupt sharpness of her own sexual need was devastating.
She hadn’t wanted to have sex with anyone since Derek’s death. She had wanted sexual release, yes, but not
with
anyone—and for a long time she hadn’t even wanted that. Shock and grief had killed her sexuality, and she’d been so numb, so focused on the herculean task of getting through each day, that she hadn’t even mourned the loss of that part of herself. After a year or so, though, her physical needs had slowly resurfaced—muted, disconnected, but at least they existed. As far as having sex went, though, she hadn’t wanted that, hadn’t wanted the physical reality of touching and being touched. To so suddenly want—
need
—the rawness of penetration made her feel as if she were being unfaithful to Derek, as if she had completely let him go.
Perhaps she had. Perhaps time had so gradually moved her beyond him that she hadn’t noticed the moment when he faded from view. Not from her heart—she would always love him, but that love was static now, the details forever frozen and unchanging. Life wasn’t static; it moved on, it changed, and what had once been so immediate instead became a dearly beloved memory that was part of the fabric of her being. Because she had loved Derek, she had become the person she was now. And that new woman was poised on the edge of something frightening and exciting and possibly life-changing. She didn’t know what would happen, but at least she was willing to find out.
Assuming she and Cal both lived, that is. For a few sleepy moments, pondering the resurrection of emotion and need, and the delicious unknown of a possible new relationship, she had forgotten their bizarre, frightening situation. Reality came crashing back; yet at the same time, the whole night seemed surreal. Things like this just didn’t happen. This was so far outside her experience that she had no reference point, no clue as to what she should be doing or what would happen next.
She listened intently; if dawn had arrived yet, she couldn’t tell. Everyone around them was asleep, or at least trying to be. Several different snores punctuated the silence, and every so often she would hear someone shifting position. Once there was a quiet murmur that she thought might belong to Neenah, who was taking care of Joshua Creed.
Tears stung her eyes as she nestled close, as close as she could get.
This
—this was what she’d missed most, the quiet companionship in the night, the knowledge that she wasn’t alone. They hadn’t so much as kissed, yet somehow, on some level, they were already linked. She felt it as surely as she knew when the twins were all right, or when they were getting into trouble. She didn’t have to see them; she didn’t have to hear them; she just knew.
“Go back to sleep,” he whispered softly. “You’ll need all the rest you can get.”
She wanted him to hold her, wanted to feel his arms around her. When he’d held her and Neenah after the frightening episode with Mellor, for the first time in a long while Cate had felt…safe. Not just because
The words asking him to hold her trembled on the verge of being spoken, but she held them back. If he held her, if he put his hands on her body, she suspected more than just holding would occur. He was a man, and he wanted her. A thrill of delight went through her as she fully acknowledged that startling fact. He might be shy—no, she wasn’t even certain of that anymore, because a shy man wouldn’t have dressed in front of everyone the way he’d done. He was definitely considerate, in the way he was keeping his back to her. They were surrounded by people, and while the arrangement of boxes and the curtain might give them a little privacy, it certainly wasn’t enough to have any sexual intimacy. Their feet protruded beyond the boxes, and if
Public sex—or even semipublic sex—wasn’t her thing, so she was grateful for his circumspection. She wanted to feel him behind her, to feel his arms around her, but she knew that if he held her, his hand would soon be sliding down the front of her pajama bottoms.
The thought sent her nerve endings into a spasm of delight, making her jerk against him. Oh, God, she wanted him to touch her, wanted to feel his long fingers sliding into her, wanted it so intensely she had to bite back a whimper.
He reached back once again, gently patting her butt.
The agony of desire instantly morphed into a choked-back laugh. He couldn’t know what she’d been thinking, what she’d been feeling, but that gentle pat had almost seemed to say, “Hold on. We’ll get to it.”
Then she remembered that telltale jerk, and her cheeks heated. Maybe he knew after all. A little bloom of contentment unfolded inside her, and she was smiling as she drifted back to sleep.
Goss watched the sky to the east slowly begin to lighten. He was tired but not yet sleepy; he figured the sleepiness would hit at some point.
Last night had been pretty damn impressive, and intense. These boys were deadly. To a man, none of them gave a rat’s ass whether someone lived or died. He could see it in their eyes, and he recognized the expression because it was the same one he saw whenever he looked in a mirror.
Teague had looked pretty bad last night, but he’d been on his feet, so it must have looked worse than it was. What interested Goss was the shotgun; that had taken Toxtel’s interest, too. Teague had been certain this guy Creed was the shooter, but he hadn’t seen him, so what it came down to was that Teague was guessing—and Goss’s gut said that Teague was guessing wrong.
This Creed was supposedly pretty good, but Teague admittedly knew nothing about the handyman or how good he was. Goss and Toxtel both had had firsthand experience with the bastard, though. Goss knew his limits, knew he was no outdoorsman, but at the same time, he was damn good at what he did and he had excellent hearing. No one—
no one
—had ever successfully sneaked up behind him before, especially when he was already alert and on watch. Yet that damn handyman had done it. Goss couldn’t remember anything, not the slightest sound or warning, no sense of the air moving; it was as if he’d been attacked by a ghost.
Toxtel was just as spooked. Granted, he’d been occupied with the two women, but his instincts were as well developed as Goss’s. He hadn’t heard the handyman moving up a flight of old creaky stairs, just turned around and found himself looking down the barrel of a shotgun. In a very un-Toxtel-like admission, he’d said, “You’re a cold bastard, Goss, but this guy…this guy makes you look like the Easter Bunny.”
Shotgun…the shooter being where he wasn’t supposed to be…What were the odds that Creed and the handyman would have those things in common?
He’d
been out there last night, closer than Goss liked to think. He wanted the guy close, because he owed him for that knock on the head, but he wanted to
know
he was close. Thinking of him sitting out there, somehow invisible to Teague’s precious thermal scopes, gave Goss an uneasy feeling. Teague had been fixated on Creed, like Creed was some sort of bogeyman, but this other guy was the wild card in the deck, someone Teague hadn’t factored into the equation.