Authors: Allison Brennan
Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #General, #Suspense, #Thrillers
She had her gun out. The gun she’d told him she got rid of. That’s when he saw the shine of the plastic gloves as her hands gripped the weapon. And finally Ethan figured out what had seemed so wrong and out of place earlier.
She’d been wearing gloves the last time she was in the room.
She aimed the gun at Hackett.
“No,” Ethan said. “Not yet—”
She fired the gun twice, in Hackett’s back and his skull.
Bang bang.
His body convulsed, then was still. Blood seeped from under his body and spread wide, a dark burgundy as the thick beige carpet absorbed what seemed like a huge amount of blood. She must have hit his aorta. Ethan hadn’t ever seen that much blood, even when Thornton’s body had been riddled with bullets.
“What are you doing?” he cried. “Someone will hear.”
She pointed the gun at Ethan.
He stared at her. Her eyes looked different. Darker. Her disguise—she didn’t look like the woman he’d met two years ago, or the one he’d left Texas with two nights ago.
“You fucked up yesterday, Ethan. You killed without a plan.”
He shook his head. “This isn’t about yesterday.” The gloves. The gun. In a clear and terrifying flash of sanity,
he knew.
He’d been set up.
“Thanks for the lessons. I’ll put them to good use.”
He stepped toward her at the same time the fire alarms went off. Someone must have heard the gunshots and pulled the alarm. Ethan made a move for the gun, knife in hand. She dropped to her knees and now he was over her, knife raised in a stabbing motion.
“You fucking traitor!” The pain and rage and hurt overwhelmed him. He saw clearly, and in the brief moment before he sliced her he realized this had been her plan all along.
She pivoted at the last second and the knife went into her arm.
She grunted and scrambled away. Ethan went after her. She had to die. He wailed, a foreign and forlorn sound. He kicked her and she stumbled, then rolled onto her back, right next to the dead general. He brought the knife down again, ready to plunge it deep into her black heart.
“You. Set. Me. Up.”
He felt the searing pain before he heard the gunshot. His body jerked again. Again. He saw Thornton in front of him, his body full of holes, his brain a bloody pulp.
I’m sorry.
Ethan fell to his knees. Reached for his savior, his executioner. She crawled away. Then everything went black.
Finally.
The scent of death permeated the room, the blood cloying, the warm fragrance of gunpowder tickling her nose. She tossed the gun toward Ethan’s body and picked up the knife. Her arm stung, and she was furious that he’d gotten a jab at her. She shoved it into her bag.
She ran out the back door, a quick glance at the digital clock on the desk of the cabin. She’d killed two men in two minutes. There had to be a record in that.
But she wasn’t free yet.
She slipped off her spiked heels as soon as she hit the sand and ran down the beach, away from the cabin, toward the pier in the distance. She paused half a minute to pull her red dress off and stuff it into the side pocket of her oversized purse. She wore a one-piece red swimsuit underneath. It was dark and moonless and no one was this far down the beach, though she heard a group of people in the distance. The tide was coming in, wetting her bare feet.
She bent down and scooped up the ocean water with her arms, splashing it over her body, wetting her hair, washing the blood off her hands and face. She rubbed the saltwater all over her. A larger wave crashed right in front of her, drenching her, and she laughed at the night.
Sirens whirled in the distance. She looked back at the resort hotel, the entire place ablaze with light as the floodlights snapped on. She’d run farther than she’d first thought. A distant whirl of police lights caught her eye as they stopped near the row of cabins.
Her heart raced, her mind awhirl. It had worked out even better than she’d planned. She’d been able to seduce Lyle Hackett instead of drugging him. The thrill of seducing a man to his death exhilarated her.
When she’d first conceived of this plan, she’d felt a bit guilty that the trained psycho had to die, but after Ethan had killed those people at the rest stop, she lost that guilt. He should have been dead years ago. His botched suicide attempts were pathetic. If he’d
really
wanted to be dead he could have done it.
She pulled a sealed gallon-sized plastic bag from her purse and removed a black-and-red-flowered sarong. The plastic had kept blood and evidence off her clothing. She tied the skirt around her waist, draped the bag over her shoulder, and walked casually toward the pier. Toward freedom, toward revenge and final justice.
It was time to start the endgame. This was the part of the plan she’d never told Ethan about. She had known he’d be dead before it started.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE
When Megan checked into the motel she had a message that Hans wanted to see her ASAP. She glanced at Jack, uncertain about what had happened between them on the plane. He avoided her eyes and for a moment she thought she’d imagined the whole thing. Or that she had been the aggressor and Jack was embarrassed.
But the truth was he’d kissed her and she kissed him back. And then some.
“I need to talk to Hans,” she said, her voice thick. She handed him his jacket.
He took it, but didn’t seem to know what to do with it. “I’m going for a run.”
He looked like he wanted to kiss her again, then he stepped back. “See you in the morning, Blondie.”
She watched him pick up his duffel bag and walk out of the lobby without looking back. She released a pent-up breath. How could one kiss leave her so disoriented?
Little sleep, lots of work.
Right, Megan, lie to yourself all you want.
She walked through the same doors. Jack was in the room right next to hers. Hans’s room was across the corridor. She was not going to chase after Jack. No matter how incredible that kiss had been, it was just one kiss, and she had work to do. She glanced at her watch. It was nearly midnight.
Maybe Hans was asleep. She’d done everything she could since leaving Colorado—called Quantico’s Assistant Director Rick Stockton himself about Price and Rosemont after getting his home number from her boss, who she quickly briefed. Richardson also had news from Detective Black in Sacramento—the van, where John Doe had been tortured, had been found abandoned in a remote area of Placer County, off Interstate-80.
Which made sense to Megan. Price’s dog tag had been sent to her from Reno. I-80 went through Reno. The killers could have gone almost anywhere after that, but instead took a straight course down to south Texas and killed Lawrence “Scout” Bartleton.
So far, no useful evidence had been collected off the van, but it was being processed in the FBI garage by their trace evidence experts.
When Megan finally talked to Stockton, he assured her that he would take a personal interest in reexamining the Russo case and pull the tapes from the interview Price mentioned. He would also get a warrant for Rosemont’s medical records. He ordered her to sleep. “An exhausted agent makes mistakes, Agent Elliott.”
Except she hadn’t yet connected with Hans, and he’d left her the message. She’d slept two hours during the flight to Colorado. She could spare another hour.
Hans opened the door seconds after she knocked. He held the door open for her to enter, but said nothing, shutting it firmly behind her. He walked over to the desk where papers and crime scene photos were spread, but he didn’t sit down.
The cliché “death warmed over” fit Hans. His skin was too pale, his eyes bloodshot, and he seemed to have aged ten years since she’d last seen him.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“What did you think you were doing tonight?”
“Excuse me? Didn’t you get my message? Rick Stockton said he would call you and—”
“Yes,” Hans interrupted, “but that doesn’t excuse you for going after a suspect on your own.”
“Jack Kin—”
“I don’t care!” Hans crossed over to the dresser and put his palms down on the top, not looking at her. “You know better than this. What about a warrant? What about backup?” He turned and stared at her. “You’ve fucked this up from the beginning.”
She blinked. Hans didn’t swear. Not like this. Did he really think she’d screwed up the case?
She had assumed the first victim was George Price, but the more she’d thought about it that night, the more she realized that if she thought he was a John Doe from the beginning, they’d never have made the connection to the army or Delta Force or the dead soldiers so quickly. Jack had concurred. With the incompetent police chief in the Bartleton investigation, and the lack of communication between the different agencies until the FBI showed interest, they certainly wouldn’t have teamed up with Jack and Padre and had the information about the Delta ops that led to a possible suspect—the reporter, Barry Rosemont. And no way would they have found Price without Padre’s connection. At least not tonight.
Yes, she made a poor assumption, but it had ended up being beneficial.
“Warrant?” she said, not knowing what part of Hans’s verbal attack to address first. “I didn’t need a warrant. I was talking to a potential witness—”
“Witness? Is that what you’re calling killers these days?”
“You’ve lost me, Hans. Where do you think I’ve been?”
“Hunting down George Price. And if he’s—”
“He’s not the killer.”
“And you know this how? Because he told you?”
Her mouth dropped open. “I— He didn’t have motive or opportunity.”
“And you were able to ascertain this in a few hours?”
Megan didn’t know what she’d done to warrant such a dressing down. She straightened her back and said, “Let me explain from the beginning. I think you must have misinformation or something—”
“I talked to Father Francis. He tracked down George Price like that.” Hans snapped his fingers. “We find out the real George Price isn’t dead, and less than twelve hours later the only other surviving Delta team member hands you his location on a silver platter?”
“It’s a close-knit group. They know people. I don’t understand your point.”
“Maybe Frank Cardenas isn’t the good priest everyone thinks he is.”
“This doesn’t sound like you—”
“You don’t know me, then.”
Hans might as well have slapped her. Megan had met Hans three months after her father was killed in Desert Storm. She’d been a senior in college. A visiting lecturer, Hans had recruited her into the FBI. Became a friend, a mentor, someone she’d confided in. He’d been the best man at her wedding, and while her marriage to Mitch Bianchi hadn’t lasted, her friendship with Hans had. They’d spent six weeks in Kosovo together, and afterward she didn’t consider anyone else a closer friend or confidant than Hans Vigo.
“Price told us that—”
He cut her off. “You found him?”
“Yes. It was arranged.”
“And you didn’t arrest him?”
“For what?”
“He went AWOL five years ago and disappeared. You found him, and let him go? You used to believe in the law, Megan. You used to believe in the rules. The system.”
“I still do. I didn’t do anything—”
“You let our primary suspect in seven murders get away!”
Megan’s voice cracked when she said, “Price didn’t have the opportunity. He’s not a suspect. He’s no saint, but if you were there you’d have heard his testimony and known he was telling the truth.”
“I wasn’t there. You left without me.”
“You didn’t answer my call.”
“The interview could have waited.”
She didn’t agree, but simply said, “It’s my case.”
“I’m the senior agent.”
He was pulling rank again. Her stomach flipped. She pressed on when all she wanted to do was run away—or scream at Hans. Something strange was going on with him, and she didn’t know what it was.
But his words niggled at her. Maybe he was right. Maybe she shouldn’t have let George Price walk away. Maybe her judgment was completely off.
“Price told me he left his dog tags with Russo’s body after he accidentally stabbed him.”
“He
accidentally
stabbed his commanding officer?”
“Price said the knife was Russo’s. Russo had gone on a news program and blamed his team for a failed mission in Afghanistan that resulted in a civilian being taken hostage. Rosemont—Padre mentioned him.”
“The same ex-soldier who miraculously located an AWOL sergeant in less than a day.”
Megan had had enough with Hans. “I don’t know what is wrong with you, Hans! I followed a lead and it paid off. For years you’ve been telling me I need to trust my instincts more, and when I do you tell me how wrong I am. I’m telling you right now that I believe everything Price told me. He had nothing to do with these murders. He’s been living quietly in the mountains of Colorado for five years. If he had anything to do with it, he would never have agreed to meet with me. He didn’t know it wasn’t a trap; he came willingly because Padre asked him to.”
“And you believed everything he said. He could have been laying out a nice false trail so we didn’t go looking for him. To throw us off track.”
“We’d have never found him! If CID couldn’t find him for five years, we wouldn’t have. He’s off the grid.”
“If I were you, I’d spend tonight writing up a detailed report of what you did and said and heard. You’re going to need it.”
“What?”
“You fucked up, Megan. I wish things were different, but I’m going to have to file a report with the Office of Professional Responsibility. So you’d better be damn sure that you followed proper procedure or you’ll be lucky to have a job next week.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
Jack ran hard for five miles, but the workout did little to curb his appetite for a certain lanky blond fed who had legs that went up to Heaven and lips that begged for sin. He’d have to take a cold shower if he was going to get any sleep tonight.
He jogged up the path leading to his room and glanced toward the pool. It was closed, but maybe a quick jump in the deep end would get rid of the ache in his groin. Not the ideal way to ease his hard-on, but he didn’t think slipping into Megan’s bed would go over too well.
Jack wanted to drown the little devil sitting on his shoulder telling him to go to Megan, consequences be damned.
The pool was gated, but the gate wasn’t locked. He approached the edge of the pool and removed his shirt, then saw a lone figure sitting at the opposite end, feet in the water, hands back, face upward.
He’d recognize her silhouette anywhere.
Megan.
The breeze was warm and dry even at one in the morning. The underwater lights were dim, framing her curvy, athletic frame. Jack walked around the pool and sat next to her. “Up for a little skinny dipping?” he teased.
Why did you say that? What are you planning on doing?
“Everyone else in this place is sleeping,” he added.
“Umm,” she said, averting her face.
He touched her cheek to turn her face to his; it was wet.
She batted away his hand, wiped her face with her shirt. “Why aren’t you sleeping?” she asked, her voice cracking. She coughed into her hands and cleared her throat.
“I went for a run.”
“At one in the morning?”
“I needed to release some energy.”
She didn’t say anything and he realized she knew exactly why he was in discomfort.
He asked, “What’s wrong?”
“I’m okay.”
“I didn’t ask if you were okay.”
Of course she was okay, she was a cop. They had to be okay with senseless death and violence. In many ways, cops and soldiers were alike. They saw the worst of mankind and they continued to do the job. The dead and dying; the helpless and hopeless. Dead women, dead children, dead soldiers and cops. Jack had seen more than he’d ever wanted, or expected. He’d been raised by a military father, but he didn’t know what that meant at the time. Not until he saw his first corpse. Buried his first friend. Killed his first enemy.
Megan explained, “Fifteen years ago I graduated from Quantico. I hadn’t wanted to be an FBI agent. I didn’t know what I wanted to be. I’d never been close to my mom, and although I know I romanticized my father as perfect, especially after the divorce, he was still my hero. When he was gone . . .”
Her voice drifted away. Jack stuck his feet in the water and watched her toes stretch and relax, stretch and relax. Her toenails were painted dark red. What was that on the big toe? A flower? Jack couldn’t imagine Megan sitting still long enough to allow someone to paint her toes. Maybe he didn’t know her well enough. Yet.
“One of my professors had a family emergency,” she said. “We had a substitute for two weeks, a guest lecturer, Hans Vigo from the FBI. I thought that was silly for a psychology class, until I listened to him. I was hooked. He recruited me and the rest is history. I can’t imagine being anything other than an FBI agent. This is what I am supposed to be. I’m nothing without the job. I
am
the job.”
She looked out at the ripples that their feet made as they moved lazily in the cool water. Her eyes were still bright, but there were no more tears. Jack breathed a silent sigh of relief, though her words pained him. They were familiar and foreign at the same time.
“Before I left the military, I couldn’t see myself in any role other than soldier,” he said quietly.
“You’re still a soldier.”
“It’s different when you can walk away when you want.”
“But can you? Really? Just walk away and never do what you know, what you love? What if it was taken from you?”
Before Jack could say anything, she continued. “I had a kidnapping my first year in Sacramento. A five-year-old girl. At first they thought her father had snatched her because he and the mother had been in court fighting over custody ever since the girl had been born. But we quickly realized he hadn’t, that a child predator had grabbed her.
“I knew the statistics, that if we found her alive, she would have been . . . hurt. But I also knew that if we didn’t find her fast, she’d be dead. My team worked closely with the sheriff’s department, analyzed every tip, every trace of evidence, and based on a small flower, we tracked them to Amador County, east of Sac. We talked to everyone about our suspect’s black van. We found them. In eight hours, forty-nine minutes. And the little girl was not only alive, but untouched.”
She smiled. “Melody. Her name is Melody and she’s nine years old now. And it’s her and everyone else I can save—and can’t save—that keeps me going. If there’s a victim, I want to catch the perp. If there’s a crime, it needs to be solved. I hate loose ends.”
“But.”
“Most crimes I understand. Melody’s kidnapper, he was a repeat sex offender. I
understand
that. He needed to be stopped, but at least I could look at the victim and look at the criminal and figure out who and what and why. But those folks at the rest stop? Where’s the why in their murders? Why them? Why did they die? It was senseless and wrong. Hell, if they’d been
robbed
I could understand it! Hate it just as much, but at least there would be a
reason.
But the killer just shot them and walked away. Let a family die for nothing. And the baby . . . oh, God, I haven’t felt this helpless since Kosovo.”
“I didn’t know you were there.”
“After the war. I was part of the evidence response team that dug up the mass graves and identified the remains of those slaughtered. Another senseless crime, on a far bigger scale.”
“You couldn’t have stopped what happened in Kosovo just like you couldn’t stop what happened to that family yesterday.”
“But that’s the thing: I know I couldn’t have done anything about Kosovo, and at least giving families a body to bury, answers to their questions, kept me going. But how do you know I couldn’t have stopped Thomas and Loretta from dying? Hans thinks if I hadn’t jumped to the conclusion that George Price was a victim, the Hoffmans wouldn’t have died. I should have brought Price in for questioning—”
“Stop, Megan. We already talked about this. If you didn’t think your victim was Price, we wouldn’t even be this far in the investigation.”
“But the killers wanted it like this. Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“I feel manipulated when I realize that it’s because of the killers that I’m here at all. They’re jerking me around, pulling me along on a chain, keeping me far enough away so I can’t stop them, but close enough so I can almost see them . . . then they slip away. I feel so damn helpless! And now Hans is furious that I spoke to Price without a warrant and didn’t bring him in.”
“He spoke to us because Padre assured him he was safe.”
“I didn’t ask Padre to do that. I have the laws of this country to follow. I should have brought him in. What if I’m wrong
again
? What if he
is
involved somehow?”
“You don’t believe that. If you believed he was guilty, you would have arrested him in Cortez.”
“What if I missed something? What if I overlooked evidence, or ignored a witness, or—”
Jack put his finger to Megan’s lips. She sucked in her breath, startled by the touch. One finger, but a wholly intimate gesture.
“What happened tonight with Hans?”
Two tears escaped her eyes. Jack’s jaw clenched. He wanted to hit the man who had made Megan cry.
“It’s me,” she whispered. “I messed up.”
His voice was deeper than normal when he spoke. “I don’t have to tell you what you know in that sharp and beautiful head of yours. Shit happens. People like us stop it when we can, but most of the time we’re cleaning up other people’s messes. You didn’t do anything wrong. You followed your head, and it led you to information that
is
going to lead us to answers.”
“You believe Price is innocent, right?”
“Do you?”
“I don’t know anymore. What if I let a killer get away?”
“Is that what Hans said?”
“He may be right. But it’s out of his hands, and mine.” She turned her head away from him, wiped her eyes, stared at their feet in the water.
“What do you mean?”
“He’s filing a report with OPR. Sort of the FBI’s version of CID.”
Jack put his hand on her jaw and forced her to look at him. “Why?”
“I don’t break the rules, Jack. But since Monday I’ve completely disregarded every rule out there. And if my assumptions led to the Hoffmans being killed—”
“Stop.”
Megan wanted to look away, but Jack held her gaze. He was holding her face too tightly, but in the way he stared at her, she saw the war battling beneath his skin. The same war within her.
“You are not responsible for anyone dying. You did not pull the trigger, and neither did George Price. You know it, I know it, Hans knows it, too. I don’t know what happened today to get his panties in a twist, but tomorrow he’ll think differently.”
“I hope so,” she whispered.
He dropped his hand from her mouth, skimmed her thigh with his fingertips.
This time when Jack kissed her, Megan knew what to expect, but her heart still skipped a couple beats, her blood heated, her breath came heavier. He was intoxicating, and she was an addict. She’d never get enough of Jack, his lips, his tongue, his hands as they moved up her thigh, skimmed her pelvis, landed solidly on her waist. His fingers kneaded her, as if he were a cat getting comfortable.
Tom Cat.
Jack wasn’t the sort of man to build a relationship, a life, or start a family. Megan knew that in her head, but her heart, and her libido, told her head to stop thinking.
Then she had no room for thought at all. Jack’s kiss was anything but timid and hesitant. His hands moved from her waist, firmly skimmed her breasts, then fisted in her hair, kneading, as he held her head right where he wanted it, his mouth open, his tongue searching for hers. Her senses breathed in his rich, intoxicating aroma of sweat from his run and lust from their embrace. She’d never imagined such an instant passion, a white heat that devoured her, making her yearn for someone, making her want Jack.
He kissed her thoroughly, her lips wonderfully swollen, her body hot and needy. She pushed away thoughts of the future, of how wrong it was to be here with Jack, someone she shouldn’t want and couldn’t have. Megan simply enjoyed the intense heat and mutual deep attraction. Simple? There was nothing simple about Jack Kincaid, and nothing simple about how she felt about him.
He slipped into the pool and pulled her in with him. She gasped as the cool water soaked her clothes. He seemed unaffected. He looked at her, his face inches from hers. Just looked. Her mouth parted. He rubbed his index finger around her lips, up her face, to her eyes. He closed her lids lightly, kissed them with a feather of a touch.
“Come here.” His voice was low and as rough as the whiskers on his face. Without waiting for her to come, he pulled her to him, neck deep in water, holding her up with little effort. She wrapped her legs around his waist, her wet body rubbing against his hard chest. His hand went up under her cami, his thumb rubbing her nipple. She gasped into his mouth and he kissed her hard, his hands stroking up and down her back, her face, her hair.
“It’s time,” he whispered into her ear.
“For what?” She licked his jaw, up to his earlobe and he clutched her tighter.
“To make love.”
She pulled back. “Here?”
He shot her a smile. “I’d love to, but I was thinking more along the lines of a bed. This time.”
This time.
His hand rose from the water and he was holding a key. The number on the plastic tag was 115.
“That’s mine.”
“It was in your pocket.” He grinned as he kissed her, then swam over to the edge of the pool, holding her close to him. He lifted her out, sat her on the edge, then pulled himself out with the grace and sex appeal of a champion swimmer. The water poured off his body and she couldn’t avoid staring.
He held out his hand. She took it and he pulled her into his arms. Jack didn’t take his eyes off her as if fearing she’d change her mind.
She may have lost her mind, but she had no intention of changing it.
They walked to her room, but Megan didn’t notice anything except Jack as he unlocked the door and they slid inside. As soon as it closed, he backed her against the door, his mouth on hers, her arms around his neck. She shivered, from the heat of passion and the cold dip in the pool. He turned her around, walked her over to the bed as if they were in the middle of an intimate dance. His leg was between hers, her leg was between his, and she felt through his wet shorts how this tango was going to end. The thrill coursed through her body, a surge of both lust and apprehension.
“Jack—” She could say no more because he was kissing her again.
“You’re cold.” He pulled off her cami in one motion. His hands cupped her bare breasts, warming them, and she gasped at the extremes, the heat and the cold.
Jack’s hard body radiated a thousand degrees of heat, and Megan’s chill disappeared, filled instead with something she hadn’t felt in . . . forever. No thought, no responsibility, no doubt, no regret. She opened her arms to Jack, offering everything she had, knowing he would take it all and more. Knowing he would give everything, and then some.
What happened to his shirt? He wasn’t wearing one. He’d left it at the pool. He stepped out of his wet shorts and he was naked. In the dim light, she saw his silhouette, a perfect Cuban god. Her breath caught—
Breathe, Megan! Breathe!
She swallowed, her mouth dry, and stepped forward. Her hands rested on his chest, she ran her fingers up and down, back and forth, massaging his chiseled muscles. He leaned into her, and she felt the edge of the bed against the back of her knees. And still he moved forward. Pushing her down, his hands on her hips, tugging her pants and panties off together.