“You don‟t have to go anywhere then. You want to see him?” He pulled out that Life Alert and let it dangle off its chain as he pointed to his own chest. “You have your bait right here.”
In the end, it turned out Grier needed the suitcase she‟d packed.
She was going to her father‟s to stay out in Lincoln for a couple of days—and Isaac and Jim were remaining behind here in her house to face that man, Matthias. Although it felt odd to be giving her family‟s home over to relative strangers, the reality was that the place offered ways of exit that would make things safer for the two men.
And regardless of what she thought of them, she wasn‟t going to be a party to their deaths if there was something she could do about it.
Tragically, there was no more talk about coming forward and her father had called off his contacts. Isaac wasn‟t going to say a word about anything and her father didn‟t know enough to do any real damage—so the risks, as balanced against the likely benefits, just couldn‟t be justified.
Which flat-out sucked. But that was the real world for you.
Staring at her suitcase, she decided leaving here actually had a lot of benefits. She didn‟t want to stick around during the removal of that body—no need to see that on a good day, much less with the way things had been going. Besides, she just plain needed a break. When this stuff with Isaac had started, it had been so familiar, all the keyed-up exhaustion, the block and tackle of events and crises. But she was tired…and determined to stick to her new conviction: Time to pull out, pull away, leave behind.
So she was heading for Lincoln with a heavy heart, but eyes that were wide open.
Grabbing the second season of
Three’s Company
from her bookshelf, she unlatched her suitcase to put it in—
Grier stiffened and braced herself.
245
J.R. Ward
This time, for once, she knew that Isaac was standing in the doorway to her bedroom—even though he hadn‟t knocked.
Looking over her shoulder, she saw that his hair was curling up from whatever had been poured over his head and his stare was as intense as ever.
“I came to say good-bye,” he murmured quietly, that delicious Southern drawl weaving through the deep, low words. “And to tell you that I‟m sorry I lied to you.”
As he took a step into her room, she turned back to the suitcase, slid the DVD inside, and shut the lid. “Are you.”
“Yes.”
She clicked both locks into place. “You know, the part I don‟t understand is why you bothered. If you never had any intention of going through with it, why did you talk to my father?
Or was it to get at him? Figure out how much he knows and then warn your friends?” When he didn‟t answer, she pivoted around. “Was that it?”
His eyes roamed her face as if he were memorizing it. “I had another reason.”
“Hope it was good enough to ruin the trust I had in you.”
Isaac nodded slowly. “Yes. It was.”
Well, didn‟t that make her feel used as hell.
Grier grabbed the suitcase‟s handle and hefted the thing off her bed. “And you did it again.”
“Did what?”
“Activated that damn Life Alert. Called that Matthias nightmare to you.” She frowned. “I think you‟ve got a death wish. Or some other agenda I can‟t begin to guess at. But in either event, it‟s not my business.”
Staring up at his hard, beautiful face, she thought, God, this hurts.
“Anyway, good luck,” she said, wondering whether, by the end of the night, he was going to be in the condition of that other soldier.
“I meant what I said, Grier. Down in the kitchen.”
“Hard to tell what is real and what‟s a lie, isn‟t it.”
Her heart was breaking even though that made no sense whatsoever, and in the face of the pain, all she wanted was to get away from the man who stood so still and powerful on the far side of her bedroom.
On the far side of her life, actually.
“Good-bye, Isaac Rothe,” she murmured, heading for the door.
“Wait.”
For a brief moment, some kind of odd, disastrous hope took flight in her chest. The flare didn‟t last, however. She was done with fantasies and fantastic excitement.
She did, however, let him approach as he held something out to her.
“Jim asked that I give this to you.”
Grier took what was in his hand. It was a ring—no, a piercing, a little dark silver circle with a ball into which the free end screwed. She frowned as she looked at the tiny inscription that ran around the inside. It was in a language she wasn‟t familiar with, but she recognized the PT950
stamp. The hoop was made of platinum.
246
Crave
“It‟s Adrian‟s, actually,” Isaac murmured. “They‟re giving it to you and they want you to wear it.”
“Why?”
“To keep you safe. So they say.”
It was hard to imagine what the thing could do for her, but it did fit on her forefinger, and when Isaac took a deep, relieved breath, she was a little surprised.
“It‟s just a ring,” she said softly.
“I‟m not sure anything is a „just‟ right now.”
She couldn‟t disagree there. “How are you going to get that body out of here?”
“Move it.”
“Well, there you go.” She took one last look at him. The idea that he could be dead in a matter of hours was inescapable. And so was the reality that she was probably not going to know what happened to him. Or where he went next if he survived. Or whether he would ever sleep in a safe bed again.
Feeling herself slipping, she hiked up her suitcase, nodded at him and walked out, leaving him behind.
There was no other choice.
She had to take care of herself.
247
T
he choice had to be the result of free will.
That was the problem with this whole contest thing: The soul in question had to choose their path of their own free will when they got to their crossroads.
As Devina stepped out of the shower in her suite at the Four Seasons, she thought about how much she hated the freewill bullshit. It was far more efficient for her to take possession and drive the bus, so to speak. The Creator, however, had limited the impact she was allowed to have under the rules.
Jim Heron was the only one who was supposed to set up the souls…the only one who was allowed to try to influence the choices made in any fashion.
Fucking Jim Heron.
Fucking
bastard
.
And fuck the Creator, too, for that matter.
She snapped a towel off a brass rod and dried off the beautiful brunette‟s body, all the while thinking that this was such a better home than that snake-tatted soldier‟s. But she didn‟t have time to do the flesh-reunion justice. The final round with the current soul in play was not just approaching—it was here.
Time to close this match down and win it.
After vacating the familiar skin of Matthias‟s second in command, she had taken to the air and extricated herself from that brick house. The spiteful side of her had wanted to park it inside that female attorney or in her father—just for kicks and giggles and the drama of it all. But with the way things were, she didn‟t think that was a wise idea: everything was so perfectly arranged, the players‟ predilections and proclivities ensuring how they would act.
It was the wardrobe equivalent of a perfect outfit.
And she needed to win this one for reasons more than the game: She wanted payback for Jim Heron‟s performance in her private quarters. And not the one with her minions, the one when the pair of them had been alone.
She‟d been utterly unprepared for his attack. Or the fact that he was so clearly much more than just another angel. Adrian or Eddie could not have pulled off something like that. She didn‟t know anyone who could.
It just made no sense—Jim Heron had been chosen for a defined role and he was supposed to be a lackey who was neither good nor bad. Matter of fact, he‟d been agreed upon by both sides because each team thought that he would influence things according to their values and take cues from a prescribed amount of “coaching.”
What utter bullshit that had turned out to be.
248
Crave
That first soul they‟d battled over? Jim had done everything possible to push the man toward the good—proving that Devina‟s faith in him had been misplaced. That son of a bitch was a savior in a sinner‟s clothes,
not
one of her kind. Which was why she was going to have to get even more involved from this point on; there was no one on the field representing her interests, and manipulation of the situation was critical if she was going to prevail in any of these innings.
If she didn‟t finesse things, she was going to lose after going oh-for-four.
And that was why she‟d taken Jim down below to her realm when she had. She‟d needed to get him away from Matthias—any contact between those two was a bad idea.
But at least her choice of soul seemed to have been the right one. She‟d been nurturing the head of XOps for the last two years and by now, she all but owned him—so when Nigel and she had conferred over the next individual in play, she‟d picked Martin O‟Shay Thomas, aka Matthias.
Next round was back to Nigel‟s choice, and undoubtedly he‟d pick someone much more difficult for her.
Matthias…oh, dearest, corrupt Matthias. One last immoral act and he was hers for eternity—
as well as her first win.
All he had to do was take the life of Isaac Rothe and ding-ding-ding! she could do a victory lap on Jim Heron‟s ass.
Although…given what Heron had done to her, she feared he was not just a quarterback in this game, but an entity of another sort. And that was another reason she hadn‟t stuck around in Beacon Hill. The exchange between her and him down below had drained her, and she wasn‟t strong enough to face a full-on confrontation with the male so soon.
Especially given that underestimating her nemesis‟s powers was clearly a mistake.
Wrapping herself up, she looked at the marble counter that ran around the sinks. Part of her therapist‟s assignment from two weeks before had been to clean out her makeup collection, and she‟d complied, throwing away countless Chanel compacts and lipsticks and eye shadows.
Now, as she stared at the emptiness of the space, she panicked at the lack of possessions.
One Gucci bag of stuff was all she had. That was it.
With fumbling hands, she grabbed the little tote and tipped it over, black tubes and squares and pots going all over the place. Breathing through her mouth, she set about ordering the dozen or so containers, arranging them by size and shape, not utility.
It wasn‟t enough. She needed more—
In the dim reaches of her mind, Devina knew she was spiraling, but she couldn‟t help it. The realization that Jim was far more formidable than she‟d thought…and that she was in far greater danger of losing than she‟d believed…rendered her a slave to her inner weakness.
Her therapist maintained that buying more shit or taking more trinkets or ordering and reordering the placement of objects wasn‟t going to solve anything. But it sure made her feel better in the short run…
In the end, she had to all but drag herself out of the bathroom. Time was wasting and she had to make sure that all the little dominoes she‟d arranged fell in the right and proper order.
To soothe her OCD, she repeated what her therapist had told her three days ago:
It’s not
about the things. It’s about your place in this world. It’s the space you declare as yours
emotionally and spiritually.
249
J.R. Ward
Whatever. She had work to do.
And another suit of skin to slipcover herself in.
250
A
fter the Childes set off in their cars, with Eddie and Adrian surreptitiously on their heels, Jim and Isaac stayed behind in the house of a thousand secret passages—all of which Jim had been shown, thanks to Captain Childe.
In the wake of the departures, the house was dark, inside and out, and he and Isaac stood at the ready.
It was the old times back again, Jim thought.
Especially as he put his phone up to his ear and waited for Matthias to answer the call.
Although…if it really was back in the day, the bastard would fucking pick up.
At this point, he was desperate for a way to reach the guy before he arrived with all guns blazing—
His former boss‟s voice shot into his ear. “Isaac.”
“No.” Jim trod carefully, because God knew there were loose ends hanging all over the place. “Not Isaac.”
There was a moment of pause which was filled by a subtle whir in the background. Car?
Plane? Hard to be sure, but probably a car.
“Jim? Is that you.” The voice was robotic, deader than dead. Obviously, even a hi-how‟re-ya from the grave wasn‟t enough to shake the guy, but it seemed in this instance not to be a case of the great mastermind being unflappable. More like the man was numbed out.
Jim carefully chose his words. “I‟m more interested in how you are. That and I‟d like to talk about the picture you received.”
“Do you. Well, I got other things on my mind—like how you are on my phone. You‟re dead.”
“Not really.”
“Funny, I had a dream about you. I tried to shoot you and you didn‟t die.”
Shit, straddling the two worlds was complicated. “Yeah, I know.”
“Do you.”
“I‟m calling about your number two. Isaac didn‟t kill him.”
“Oh. Really.”
“I did.” Liar, liar, pants on fire. Good thing he‟d never had a problem with that kind of shit.
“And again, I say to you, I thought you were dead.”
“Not that dead.”
“Clearly.” Long pause. “So if you are alive and well, why‟d you go and do that to my number two, Jim?”