The Risqué Target (32 page)

In sudden, utter awe, she slowly said, “Yes.” But then a thought popped into her head. “But what about you?”

“Good,” he said, ignoring her question. “I want you to go out to the car. It's unlocked. There's a gun and a phone in the glove box. Call NESA and wait in the car for backup.”

He planned on staying behind.

“Uh-uh.” She shook her head. “There's no way. I'm not going to leave you here!”

“Hey, look at me.” His quiet, tough voice hushed her, and she paused at the tender command. “He wants revenge on me, not you.”

“No.” She was shaking now. She could face her own death, but not this.

Grabbing her by the shirt, he tugged her close. “Yes, you can, and you will.”

She tried to touch his angry face, but her cuffed hands couldn’t reach it.

“Listen to me, Nala,” he said. “I wish I were the man you want me to be, but I can’t be. I'm not worth it. Just do what I say, goddamn it!”

Her gaze refused to leave his. “You're worth it to me.” In the silence she held his stare. “Tantum, you are worth it to me.”

He pushed her hard against the cold post. “Why should I be?” he snarled. “Sure, Nala, I think you’re worth caring about. And yeah, I tried. But I’m past it. In the end, this is just another assignment. I needed you to stay, so I led you on.”

She looked for the tic in his eye, the tell that gave away he was speaking the truth. She didn’t see it. She smiled. “Not that again. It’s too late, I’ve seen that you can care. That you do care.”

“Then why did I lie to you about your partner Gabe?”

Her protests died unspoken. “What?”

His eyes gleamed fierce. “You were right the day you put that knife to my neck and called me a cold-blooded killer.” He paused and glanced up. She heard it too, footsteps shuffling on the floor overhead. But he plunged on, “Nala, here’s the truth: I killed Gabe Cafferty.”

She forgot the sounds above her, the cuffs around her wrists, and where she was. “What did you say?”
It couldn’t be true. It couldn’t.

“I’m the one who knocked you out,” he said, his eyes dead and flat. “I pushed you into that that burnt two-by-four, and then I shot Cafferty two times.” He tapped his finger over his heart. “Right here, right in the chest.”

“No!” She shook her head in utter denial. Her heart disintegrated. It didn't break, it just evaporated, leaving nothingness. “No!”

“I killed the man you were sleeping with, the man you loved. I killed Gabe Cafferty.”

And that was when she saw it, the flinch in his right eye
.

He reached into his pocket with the fingers of one cuffed hand and fished out his key. “I'm going to unlock your handcuffs. You're going to climb through that window, run to the car, call for backup, and wait for them to arrive.”

“You had to have a good reason,” she said, everything around her hazy and surreal. “He was my teacher, I admired him, but I wasn’t in love with him. You can tell me, I can face it.”

“Sure, I had a reason,” he answered coldly. “It was my assignment.”

She snapped out of it, and reality hit full force in her now-alert mind. It was just as Gabe had said as he lay dying in her arms. Tantum Maddox had killed him, and somehow, somewhere along the line, she'd lost her focus. She'd fallen for the Dark Angel’s charm, fallen good and hard, and he’d played her for a fool. She lunged at him and stumbled forward when he dodged, going further than she'd anticipated. She realized he’d freed her from his cuffs.

“Someone else is here, and they're gonna come down any second. Get the fuck out of here,” he said.

She turned away from him. A step sounded overhead. She ran across the room, building momentum, jumped the window, and caught hold of the ledge. In ten seconds, she was on the muddy ground running free.

****

As he watched her sneakers disappear from the window, Tantum exhaled deeply and rested his heavy head against the cold beam. He’d wanted to tell her about Gabe Cafferty, but now he was glad he’d held that card close. Probably nothing else would have made her leave him. He wished like hell he could've told her in a different way. The denial, the pain in her eyes had ripped his heart out.

The door creaked. He straightened, ready to fight if he could, and if couldn’t, to die. At least he knew Nala was safe. that was all he really cared about at that moment.

Just as he’d expected, it was Hark Sullivan who descended the basement stairs. Tantum greeted him with his best wise-ass smile.

Before today, he’d have scorned the guy for one sick puppy, but now he found he couldn’t really blame Hark for his deep-seated hatred. If anyone had caused Nala’s death, he could imagine reacting the same way: hunt the man down, no matter how long it took.

But if he could imagine it, the man standing in front of him was living it. He’d lived it for years. Once his Target was gone, who was to say where his obsessive revenge might turn.

On Nala, for instance? Tantum drew a deep breath. He needed to get out of here alive. If he didn’t, Hark could be that man, the one to kill the woman Tantum loved. “Sullivan. Been looking for me, haven't you?”

“No. I've always known where you were,” Sullivan gloated. “I was just waiting for the opportunity to bring you down. I found one three years ago, but you got lucky. Brent Walden fucked up.” He glanced around the room and frowned.

He’d realized Nala wasn't there. Tantum knew he had to get the man’s attention. “Yeah, that's too bad. Hey, too bad to be surrounded by incompetence, eh? Kinda like that mortgage fraud case all over again.”

“You’ll pay for that too,” he gave a derisive snort. “Think you’re real hot shit, don’t you? When I got back from the Navy, after Marcy's death, I looked you up. Spoiled little fucking rich kid. Daddy paid your way out of everything, didn’t he? I thought I'd teach you a lesson, have my brother set you up, destroy your life. You were lucky then too, he would only agree to go so far. But when I ran into you at NESA, and you fucked up my life again, I decided you needed to pay for all you've taken from me. Being stuck in Alaska for the past few years has allowed me the time to plot my revenge on you, Tantum. First for taking my sweet Marcy from me—”

“She had an attack, Hark. She was a diabetic, and—” Tantum tried to explain to the delusional man.

“No! My Marcy was perfect. When she called me about what that doctor told her, I told her not to listen. He didn’t know what the hell he was talking about, Marcy was
perfect
, she had absolutely nothing wrong with her.”

“Damn it, Hark! You knew she was diabetic and you encouraged her to ignore it?” Tantum couldn't hold back his rage.

“It wasn’t true! You and your fucking high school prank, your self-indulgent recklessness, that’s what took her away from me!” Sullivan reached behind his back and drew a gun. “It was too tempting to resist, setting you up, NESA’s top agent, going down for those bombs.” He wasn’t listening, Tantum realized. He was too lost in his own delusions. Tantum desperately hoped he wasn’t really seeing his surroundings, either. That he hadn’t noticed Nala’s absence. “NESA's notorious agent,” he went on, waving the gun. “Marcus Richards, thrown into jail, left there to rot with your father unable to save you. How could I resist that life?”

Tantum nodded. “Understandable.”

Sullivan stepped in and shoved the gun under Tantum’s chin. “Where's the girl?”

Tantum’s hope crashed hard. He forced himself to look his enemy in the eye. “Sorry, Sullivan,” he mocked. “You just get me. Besides, this is between us, isn’t it? She’s got nothing to do with it.”

“She knows too much, Brent was supposed to eliminate her. When I'm through with you, I'll track her down and finish the job.” He smiled. “Looks like you’ve become fond of the bitch, so I’ll take great pleasure in killing her, just like you killed my Marcy.”

Every muscle in his body constricted, and Tantum surged forward. The restraints stopped him, but still he pushed. He felt them cutting his wrists, but rage infected him like a poison. “If you touch her!” he threatened.

“What?” Sullivan laughed, took another step back, and lifted the gun. “What are you going to do? You'll be too dead to do a damn thing about it.”

“Hark!”

Tantum's body froze at the sound of her voice. Nala stood on the basement steps, her gun pointed at Sullivan. Hark twisted around as she came down the stairs, glancing at the door above.

“Don’t bother looking up there. Your goon is preoccupied,” she said. “It's just you and me, playing a little game of chicken.”

Sullivan started to turn the gun on Tantum.

“Hey!” Nala yelled. “Don't look at him. This isn’t between you and him, it’s between you and me. I'm the one with the gun, dumb-ass.”

To Tantum's horror, Sullivan fell for her taunt. He had to stop this, Sullivan wasn’t going to cave. He'd waited years for his revenge. This was one game she was going to lose. But he didn’t dare call out to her. The slightest distraction, and Sullivan would make his move.

Nala realized it too, he could tell. She kept her gun steady and her gaze on Sullivan. She looked stellar, he couldn’t help thinking even now. Stellar, and in control.

Tantum made himself remain calm, watching Sullivan’s indecision. His gun was still trained on Tantum, and Tantum meant to keep it that way.

But Hark glanced over his shoulder at Nala. “Now you’re going to watch me kill him,” he gloated, and started to turn back to Tantum.

A single shot rang out.

Sullivan pitched face forward onto the floor. Blood ran from under his head. Nala had hit him right in the temple. She stood rigid, stunned, as if the reality of what she’d done hadn’t sunk in yet.

Tantum knew what it felt like to kill for the first time. He longed to go to her and hold her, but he couldn’t move. He was still imprisoned by the restraints, imprisoned by her sudden fragility. “Nala? Look at me. Are you okay?”

Her eyes lifted to him, and she dropped her gun. The loud
thump
of metal on stone resounded through the basement. “He was… was going to kill you,” her low whisper carried to his ears. “I saw it in his eyes.” She paused and swallowed hard. “He was going to kill you. I had to shoot him. I had to.”

“It's alright, sweetheart. You're right. You did what you had to. Come here,” he coaxed, pleaded, practically begged.

“No.” Nala stumbled back, hitting the stairs and catching herself by grabbing the rail. “Tell me the truth, Tantum.”

Tantum drew in a deep breath. Then he told her the whole truth. “Gabe was Brent Walden.”

Nala's face contorted. “
What
?” she took a step toward him.

“I was at the motel in Niagara Falls. I pushed you into that beam because Gabe Cafferty was aiming his gun at you—”

"And you—oh my God! The scar on your shoulder?”

“Yes,” Tantum said.

“You took the bullet meant for me… you… you saved me…”

Nala sat on the bed, barely recalling releasing Tantum from the handcuffs. She had a dim memory of him escorting her up the stairs past the NESA agents entering the lodge. She thought she’d seen Nancy Reich, her boss, but she couldn't be certain. Leading her to the bedroom, Tantum had told her to wait for him. Sitting like a puddle of liquid devoid of shape or energy, all senses nullified, Nala had just stared obediently at the door.

When he finally came back through it, feeling began to return to her hands and feet. His eyes did a quick, thorough inspection of her. “Are you okay?” he asked between thinned lips. Nala could have sworn he was holding his breath.

“Why didn’t you tell me Gabe Cafferty
was
Brent Walden?”

He heaved a long sigh but didn’t answer her right away. “I didn’t know. When you told me about Gabe, your partner, I did a little investigating. When you told me how he was killed, it started to all come together. Three years ago, NESA told me Gabe was a hired hit man, a John Doe, and that you were a detective from the police department. They said you were okay. I didn’t think twice about it, about you. After my shoulder healed, NESA whisked me off to my next assignment in Mexico.”

“That's why Hark waited three years to bring the case back to NESA, because he couldn’t find you?”

“Yeah, it would seem so,” Tantum agreed. “When we went to that abandoned house to look for Brent Walden, I suspected the John Doe I shot might have been him. The Rowan files. It all started to add up, but I still didn’t realize he was also Gabe Cafferty.” Tantum walked over to the bed, and stood in front of her, cramming his fingers through his hair. “I'm sorry, Nala,” he said, dropping his hand to his side.