Moonrise (12 page)

He could fuck and kill if he had to, he knew that.

The danger was, he didn’t know if he could fuck and kill Annie Sutherland.

“Do you want anything to eat?” He hadn’t heard her return. She stood silhouetted in the living room door, the light from the kitchen illuminating her, and he turned slowly, knowing his face was in the shadows. There was no way she could guess what he was thinking. What he was considering.

What he might do to her.

“Yes,” he said. “I’m hungry.” And he started toward her.

S
he couldn’t sleep. Annie lay in the old-fashioned bed underneath the eaves and watched the moonlight throw shadows across the polished wood floor, and she wondered if she’d ever sleep again.

Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Clancy’s dead body slumped over the steering wheel.

She was living in a nightmare. One that had started the morning she’d found her father’s body. Everything she’d believed in, everything she’d held sacred, had been turned upside down in the past six months. Her father was a stranger to her—the warm, slightly acerbic gentleman was becoming nothing more than a fairy tale, as unlikely as cowardly dragons or noble princes.

James was a lie as well. The quiet friend of her father’s had vanished. She’d gone to him for help, expecting uncompromising strength and calm. Instead she’d found …

She didn’t know what she’d found. She didn’t know anything about the man she thought she’d known all her life. Except that he was dangerous.

But oddest, most disconcerting of all, was the fact that she didn’t know herself anymore. Simple decisions were no longer simple. More and more often she’d found herself torn between what was obvious and right, and what her father would have wanted. And oddly enough, it was her father’s wishes that seemed wrong.

If she’d had any sense at all, she would have gone into therapy, gone back to her muted colors and her muted life, and gotten on with things. Listened to Martin when he told her to leave things be. Leave James alone.

Instead she’d chucked it all and run off with the man who knew the answers. And she wasn’t entirely sure she was ready to learn them.

She wondered where he was. There was no other bed in the tiny cottage, and the chintz sofa looked too small and too dainty for a man like McKinley. Maybe he could sleep standing up. Maybe he didn’t need sleep at all.

Carew said she could change her mind, come to him for help. James said he was the only one who could keep her alive. And she had no idea who to believe, who to trust.

She glanced down at the thin Rolex her father had given her. Two forty-five in the morning, and just beyond the shadows lay a dead man. In the morning she might be dead as well.

When she awoke, the room was inky darkness. The moon had set, the wind had picked up, and there wasn’t a sound beyond the rush of the leaves. She opened her eyes, and she knew she wasn’t alone in the room.

“James?” she said, her voice almost unnaturally calm.

“Who else?” He sounded almost unbearably weary. “Time for us to get out of here.” He loomed up over the bed, barely visible in the smothering darkness.

She had the odd notion he was going to touch her. And she didn’t want him to. She scrambled off the bed, backing away from him. He made no move to follow her.

“How are we going to do that?” she asked. She was dressed in a light T-shirt and jeans, and the predawn air was chilly. She wasn’t about to tell him so.

“Clancy.”

Annie shuddered. “I’m not going in that car …”

“It’s already been moved. Disappeared. Carew and his men can be very efficient when they need to be.”

“What happened to him?”

She could see him shrug in the dim light, seemingly unconcerned. “His body won’t be found. It won’t matter—he had no family or friends outside the business. You learn to live a solitary life. No one will even notice his passing, much less mourn him.”

There was an odd note in his voice, made even more noticeable by the darkness that surrounded them. “Is that what will happen with you?” she asked.

“Not if I’m lucky.”

“What will happen if you’re lucky?”

He moved closer, and there was no place for her to run. She’d already backed up against the wall, and she could only stand there, shoulders back, as he approached.

He stopped inches away, close enough that she could feel the tension that ran through his body. Close enough so that she could close her eyes and breathe in the strength of him, the sense of him, his power and his danger.

“If I’m lucky,” he said, “I’ll go out in a blaze of glory.”

For a moment she didn’t move. He didn’t touch her, but then, he didn’t need to. She felt touched, possessed, invaded, merely by his closeness. Somewhere she found her voice, and her defenses. “Are you sure you’re thirty-nine?”
she asked dryly. “You sound like an adolescent male.”

The room was frozen in silence for a breathless moment. He moved then, putting his strong hands on her shoulders, and she flinched, unable to help herself, looking up at his shadowed face.

His long fingers splayed over her shoulders, his thumbs caressing her collar bone. “Be careful, Annie,” he whispered, ducking his head closer to hers.

“I’m not afraid to offend you,” she shot back, her voice wobbling just slightly.

“You don’t offend me.” The thumbs dipped lower, trailing across the tops of her breasts. “You …” He stopped, as if he was uncertain what to say. But James McKinley wasn’t a man plagued by uncertainty, and she waited for him to finish.

“I … what?” she prompted.

He released her abruptly, and she fell back against the wall with a pronounced thud. “We’ll talk about it when we’re out of here,” he said.

“And how are we getting out of here?”

“I told you, Clancy would have seen to it that we have a vehicle. I just have to hope we find it before the others do.”

“The others? I thought Carew was going to leave us alone for the next week.”

“Carew isn’t our only worry, Annie. Besides, I don’t trust anybody. He might do as he promised. Then again, he might not. I’m not about to risk your life on his word.”

“What about your life?”

“That’s expendable.” He shoved a hand through his hair. “We’ve got one advantage. We’re up against some impressive enemies, but they don’t know the way Clancy’s mind worked.”

“And you do?”

“I’ve known him for a long time. I trusted him. I know the way he thinks.”

There was no pain in James’s voice. Nothing but simple common sense. Annie grabbed the duffel bag and slung it over her shoulder, prepared to follow him. “Don’t you care?”

He was already out the door, and he didn’t pause, tossing the question back at her. “About what?”

“About Clancy being dead. You were friends. Close friends, it sounds like. Doesn’t it bother you?”

He started down the narrow stairs, and she almost missed his reply. “I’m used to it.”

He didn’t need to tell her to be quiet, to do as he said. She’d already learned the drill. She melted into the shadows behind him, moving almost as noiselessly as he did. The sky was just beginning to turn a paler blue,
off to the east, and she glanced down at the luminous dial on her watch. Just a little before five.

“Is anyone here?” she whispered.

“Two, maybe three operatives,” James said. “Probably Carew’s men, and that’s bad enough. If the one who did Clancy is out there too, we’re in trouble.”

“You mean we weren’t before?” she asked wryly.

Once more he froze, looking down at her. “You pick a hell of a time to develop a sense of humor.” He didn’t give her time to respond. “Stay put.”

A moment later he vanished into the darkness, leaving her alone in the kitchen.

She took a deep breath, then realized absently that her palms were sweating, her heart was pounding, and her breath was ragged. She was frightened.

It shouldn’t have surprised her. As she stood motionless in the empty house, she knew what she was listening for. The sound of gunshots. The sound of James’s death.

It all seemed so unreal. She wanted to cross the room, flick on the lights, turn on a radio. She wanted noise, she wanted normalcy. This had to be a bad dream.

But unbidden, the memory of Clancy’s body
came back to her. And she knew it was no dream.

She slid down to the tile floor, pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around her legs. She was cold, she was frightened, and if she had any sense at all she would have never embarked on this fool’s errand, where nothing was as it seemed. She would die, alone in this kitchen, and there’d be no one to mourn her. She put her head down on her knees, closing her eyes, concentrating. The dawn was perfectly still.

“Annie?”

She almost screamed, but he slapped his hand over her mouth so quickly that her head slammed against the wall. She couldn’t see him in the darkness, but she knew him—the sound of his voice and the feel of him. He gauged her acceptance perfectly, dropping his hand when she no longer needed to scream.

“You startled me,” she whispered. “I didn’t hear you come back.”

“You weren’t supposed to,” James said.

“Is there anyone out there?”

“Not now,” he said calmly. “I think I know where Clancy would have left a car for us. There’s an old shed halfway down the hillside that looks about his style. Let’s go.”

She scrambled to her feet, once again loath
to let him touch her. She didn’t know why she thought he’d want to. But it was there, between them. And she knew he would touch her. Sooner or later.

There was a faint, unexpected scent on the morning air. Metallic, sulfurous, caught on the drifting breeze. She tried to ignore it as she followed James down an overgrown path in the dawning light, tried not to test the air for other, more desperate odors.

“James,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper. She half hoped he wouldn’t hear her, but he was aware of everything, and he stopped for a moment, though he didn’t bother to turn around.

“What?”

The light was growing brighter now. Faint slivers of peach and rose spreading over the tangled hillside. If anyone was watching, they would be perfect targets, and yet James seemed momentarily unconcerned.

“Is there such a thing as a blood lily?”

He didn’t answer. He just started walking again down the hillside. And she had no choice but to follow, fighting back the horrifying knowledge that threatened to overwhelm her.

She didn’t need more than a pointed look from him when they reached the clearing by the old shed. She squatted down in the
bushes, out of sight, preparing to wait for him.

He had his gun—she could see it as he paused outside the shed door. Odd, how she couldn’t get used to the sight of weapons. Her father had always been contemptuous of handguns, and Annie had followed his beliefs. Now she was becoming very grateful for their existence.

He disappeared inside the shed, and she held her breath, listening. For the explosion of gunfire, for the sound of a struggle. For his voice telling her it was all right to follow him into the darkened interior.

Nothing.

The sun was just coming up behind her, and the eerie half-light was turning sharp and bright. She told herself she could count to one hundred, she told herself she’d do it in French just to make it slower. By the time she got to
quatre-vingt dix-huit
she knew she couldn’t wait any longer, and she rose, half expecting a bullet to slam into the back of her head.

When she first stepped inside the shed she couldn’t see him. The light was murky, with only faint slivers of sunlight fighting their way through the cracks in the old wood. He was standing in the corner, dark and silent,
and she followed his gaze, half expecting a corpse.

“Hell and damnation,” she said with a mix of horrified amusement and exasperation. “He left us a motorcycle.”

“Not just any motorcycle.” James’s voice was odd, muffled, distant. “It’s a Vincent Black Shadow. Probably 1954 or thereabouts.”

“So he left us an old motorcycle,” Annie said. “Do you think it will still run?”

“It’ll run,” James said. He tossed a helmet at her, and she caught it, watching as he pulled his own on. With his dark clothes and his height he looked absurdly dangerous.

“I wouldn’t have thought you’d be the type to worry about helmets,” she said, pulling her own on.

“I’m not. They make us harder to recognize.” He climbed onto the motorcycle with the studied grace of someone who knew exactly what he was doing.

“I take it you know how to ride one of these things?”

“Yes.”

“Did Clancy know that about you?”

“Yes.”

“I assume this motorcycle has some sentimental value—”

“Get the fuck on the back of the bike,
Annie, and stop talking,” he said in a harsh voice. “We need to get out of here, not waste time discussing hobbies.”

She did her best to appear nonchalant as she came up to him. She knew what she had to do—there was an obvious place for her directly behind him on the wide seat. All she had to do was throw her leg over and climb on. She didn’t move.

“What are you waiting for?”

“I’ve never ridden a motorcycle before,” she admitted, looking at the huge black machine with distrust.

“I should have known. Win kept you in a bell jar, didn’t he? His perfect dancing princess, without a thought or a care of her own. Throw your goddamned leg over the bike and hold on.”

“But—“ She didn’t have time for any more arguments. He caught her arm and yanked her, and she could either mount it or knock it, and them, over. She settled on the back gingerly.

“Put your arms around my waist,” he growled.

She didn’t want to do that either. “Isn’t there someplace I can hold on … ?” Her voice trailed off in a squeak as he grabbed her wrists and hauled her against him. Her breasts
were squashed against his broad back, but she had enough sense not to release him.

The engine roared to life. It didn’t sound like a forty-year-old machine—it sounded new and elegant. A moment later they were speeding out into the dazzling sunlight, and all she could do was shut her eyes and try to keep from screaming.