Pros and Cons

by Jenna Black

  The three of us waited in nervous silence, our breath steaming, our extremities freezing. Jack was late, which, considering his determination to be annoying, wasn’t much of a surprise. Douglas and Heather became progressively edgier as every minute ticked by. Douglas finally wrested his hand free of Heather’s and shoved it into his pocket while she wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. I entertained myself with visions of murder, wishing I had come up with something, anything, that didn’t involve relying on Jack.

  It was almost fifteen minutes after the scheduled rendezvous, and I was beginning to worry that Douglas and Heather were going to lose their nerve and bolt, when finally a figure appeared at the other end of the trail. He was wearing a dark, full-length coat and a hat tipped over his eyes, and I worried for a moment that he was some stranger stumbling into the middle of our sting. After all, Jack should be trying to make himself as recognizable as possible, not obscuring his face with a hat. Then again, this is Jack we’re talking about, and expecting him to be practical was like expecting the sun to set in the east.

  Heather and Douglas both noticed Jack at the same time, going visibly tense and stiff as he made his ponderous way toward us, each slow footfall echoing in the quiet of the night. One thing I’ll give him: Jack has a flair for the dramatic. His approach was ominous enough to send a chill down my spine. Heather and Douglas were both visibly breathing faster.

  He was almost on top of us before Jack finally raised his head enough to let the light hit his face. Fowler’s face, that is. I’d never seen the man himself in person, but I’d seen enough pictures to know that Jack had managed a convincing likeness.

  “Where’s the video?” Jack/Fowler growled.

  Heather and Douglas looked at each other nervously.

  “We don’t have it on us right this minute,” Douglas said, just as we’d planned. His refusal to turn over the video immediately was supposed to be our fake Fowler’s opportunity to start making threats. He would then attack Douglas and try to choke him to death, at which point I would burst out of hiding with my gun drawn and save the day. We’d have video, audio, and eyewitness evidence that Fowler had both threatened and attempted murder. We’d stage an escape so that Jack could shift back into his real form, and then we’d send the police after Fowler.

  That was the script I’d written, and for the record, I still think it was a damn good one. We’d have kept the entire transaction entirely within our control, and no one would have been in any danger. Unfortunately, neither Douglas nor Jack seemed inclined to follow my carefully constructed script.

  “That’s too bad,” the fake Fowler said, drawing an enormous handgun from his coat pocket.

  Heather took one look at that gun and, quite sensibly, screamed and started running away as fast as her feet could carry her.

  “Oh, no, you don’t!” Jack shouted, adding a maniacal laugh that if you ask me was over the top. He then fired off three quick shots in Heather’s direction. None of them hit her, thank goodness, and she leapt off the path and into the trees, using them for cover.

  While Jack was busy shooting at Heather, Douglas ducked for cover behind the nearest tree. Unfortunately, unlike Heather, he didn’t run away. For the first time since he’d arrived at the rendezvous, he took his hand out of his jacket pocket, and I saw that he, too, had brought a gun. I had thought of him as a con man and therefore not particularly dangerous. Obviously, I had miscalculated.

  “Look out!” I yelled, breaking cover and cursing both men under my breath. Douglas couldn’t kill Jack, but our carefully laid-out trap was going to fail if Jack ended up with a gunshot wound. The fact that the real Fowler had no such wound would make it a lot easier for his defense attorney to convince a jury that the man they saw in the grainy nighttime video was not Wayne Fowler, no matter how close the resemblance.

  Jack fired off another shot in Heather’s direction, then, at my shouted warning, dropped to the ground just as Douglas fired.

  “Douglas!” I shouted. “No! Stay behind the tree. Let me take care of this!” I held my gun up so that Douglas could see I had the situation under control. Maybe if Douglas had brought his gun for self-defense, he’d have listened. But it seemed he’d never truly been on board with my plan and had come prepared to eliminate the Fowler problem in the most final way possible.

  Douglas ignored me and took aim at Jack again. Jack lurched to his feet and dove toward a clump of bushes on the far side of the trail just as Douglas fired. The bullet ricocheted off the pavement about a millimeter from Jack’s head.

  Jack fired a couple of shots from behind the bushes, then shifted position so he had a tree between him and Douglas. In the distance, I heard sirens wailing. We weren’t so far off the beaten path that people wouldn’t hear the gunshots. Because the boys with guns hadn’t screwed everything up enough already, and we needed to have the police breathing down our necks. I glared at Jack, who crouched behind the trunk of his tree and grinned like an idiot.

  Across the path, Douglas was visibly trying to decide between finishing his shootout with “Fowler” and getting the hell out of Dodge before the police arrived. Jack helped him along by firing at him yet again, the bullet slamming into the tree behind Douglas and taking out a fist-sized chunk. At which point, Douglas decided Heather had made the smart choice when she ran for it. He plunged into the woods, bobbing and weaving through the trees, his body hunched over to make a smaller target. The sirens were much closer now, and I could see the flashing lights even through the cover of the trees. I gave Douglas at best a fifty-fifty shot of making it to his car without being arrested.

  Our own chances, however, might not be as good.

  Still grinning like a maniac, Jack threw his gun to the ground between us, getting down on his knees and putting his hands behind his head.

  “Damn,” he said, with mock regret. “You got me.”

  I gaped at him. “What are you doing? We have to get out of here. Now!”

  “I suggest you drop the gun and do exactly what the nice officers say when they get here,” Jack said. “Don’t forget to tell them about your video cameras. And remind them that Heather and Douglas were wired for sound.”

  “You can’t let them arrest you!”

  Jack raised his eyebrows. “Why not?”

  Was this just another one of his jokes? Any moment now, he was going to jump to his feet and start running. Right?

  But he just knelt there placidly.

  “You’ll ruin the whole thing,” I said. How could he not understand that? “They’ll put you in jail. And they’ll take your fingerprints. And they won’t be Fowler’s prints.”

  Jack frowned at me. “They won’t?” He gasped dramatically and put his hand to his chest. “Oh, my God! You’re right! I didn’t think of that!” He rolled his eyes and put both hands back on his head.

  My understanding of the situation took a disorienting step to the right. “Wait. You will have Fowler’s prints?”

  Even in the darkness, his eyes twinkled with amusement. “I don’t do things by half measures, Nikki. That’s why I told you earlier I had to meet Fowler. All I had to do was shake his hand so I could get his prints. Now I’m an exact duplicate of Wayne Fowler. And I feel an irresistible urge to clear my conscience. I have been a bad, bad man.”

  I’d have had a few more choice things to say, except at that moment, the police arrived. I dropped my gun and held my hands up before they got anywhere near me, hoping they weren’t the kind to shoot first and ask questions later.

  “You’ll get out before me,” Jack said calmly, as if there weren’t a herd of adrenaline-pumped police charging our way. “Go to Fowler’s house, and wait for me there. And make sure he doesn’t leave before I get there.”

  “How the hell are you planning to get out?” Even if some judge would grant bail in a case like this, it wouldn’t happen tonight.

  Jack j
ust gave me a droll look as the police converged.

  NINE

  What could possibly be more fun than spending more than three hours at a police station in the wee hours of the morning after having been hauled in from the scene of a gunfight? Paying taxes and having root canal come to mind.

  I told my story in careful detail, hoping the police had been able to get hold of Douglas and Heather so I could have some extra corroboration. The video from my surveillance cameras was likely enough to lend an aura of truth to my account of what had happened, as was my status as a licensed private investigator, but you never can be too sure when gunfire enters the picture.

  I made it out without being arrested, although I was lectured more than once about how I should have called the police instead of trying to take on Fowler myself. There were even some grumblings that I might be charged with obstruction of justice, but that was just bluster and intimidation.

  By the time I left the station, all I wanted to do was crawl into bed and sleep for a week. I was sorely tempted to leave Jack to his own devices. If he really needed me to go wait for him at Fowler’s house, then he should have filled me in on his version of the plan before he implemented it. It would serve him right if he had to try to find a cab at four in the morning.

  I fought off the temptation, and after picking up my car, I drove to Wayne Fowler’s house and parked at the curb. I wished I knew exactly what Jack was up to, though I had some pretty good guesses. He was a trickster, after all, and I doubted this would be the first time he had to engineer an escape after one of his escapades. My guess was that he was planning to make an escape and lead the police straight to Fowler’s doorstep. How they would explain to themselves that the man had fled the police only to come back to his own home and go to sleep I didn’t know. However, with who knows how many officers having seen “Fowler” at the station, with the mug shots that were no doubt taken, and with the fingerprints that were apparently going to match Fowler’s, there was no way he’d be able to convince anyone that the man who’d been arrested and had confessed wasn’t him.

  It was nearing five o’clock—and I wished I’d brought a thermos of coffee to help me stay awake—when the lights in Fowler’s house went on. I cursed under my breath, wishing Jack would hurry up. Our carefully concocted story was going to get a hell of a lot weirder and a lot less believable if other people saw Fowler going about his normal business while he was supposed to be in the process of escaping arrest. I didn’t know how the police would explain the discrepancy—they’d probably say the witnesses were lying or mistaken, but that explanation would wear thinner and thinner the more witnesses there were.

  I kept glancing at my watch and looking out my windows and mirrors, hoping to see Jack, but no dice. Minutes passed, one after another, and I got progressively more worried. I didn’t know what Fowler was doing up at this hour, but my gut told me he wasn’t going to lounge around his house until it was time to go to work. He was up early because he had somewhere to be, and I couldn’t afford to let him get there.

  On the theory that safe was better than sorry, I rolled my car forward until I was blocking Fowler’s driveway. Then I let the air out of one of my front tires and began the rather convoluted process of changing the tire on a Mini. I had to read the directions just to figure out where the spare was. But it gave me a good excuse to sit there blocking the driveway for a good long time.

  I had just pried the front tire off when Fowler’s garage door opened. I looked over my shoulder in time to see him shoving a suitcase into the trunk of his BMW. He slammed the trunk shut, and that was when he saw me blocking him in. I hoped he wasn’t the Good Samaritan type who would try to help the damsel in distress fix her flat, because it would be . . . awkward if Jack made an appearance in his disguise while Fowler was around.

  I needn’t have worried.

  Scowling fiercely, Fowler stomped down his driveway toward me. I tried giving him a sheepish smile over my shoulder, but he didn’t look any less pissed off. Knowing what I knew about him, I casually picked up the socket wrench I’d used to free the spare tire and rose to my feet. I didn’t really think he would physically assault me, but at least I was ready to defend myself if he did.

  “You are blocking my driveway,” he growled at me, as if there were some chance I hadn’t noticed.

  I gave him the sheepish smile again. “I’m so sorry. I tried to make it to the curb.” I bit my lip and batted my eyelashes at him. Maybe if I’d looked like Heather, it would have worked, but Fowler was unmoved.

  “I need you to move this car immediately! I have a very important meeting, and you’re going to make me late.”

  An important meeting at five in the morning? On a Saturday? And for which he needed a freaking suitcase? Yeah, right.

  “I’ll be out of your way as soon as possible,” I assured him.

  “Get that damn car out of my way now!”

  Playing helpless damsel in distress wasn’t getting me anywhere, so I dumped the charade and matched his glare with one of my own.

  “What do you expect me to do? Pick the car up and move it? If you’d stop yelling at me and leave me alone, I could fix it a lot faster.”

  “If you’re not out of here in ten minutes, you’re going to regret it,” he said, and he actually shook his finger in my face. He looked at his watch pointedly. “Ten minutes. Got it?”

  Wow, what a prince. I clamped my jaws shut to keep my retort contained, because engaging him in an argument was not what I needed. Instead, I nodded my acknowledgment and turned back to my car, keeping an eye on him in my peripheral vision. He glared at me for another minute, then marched up the driveway and slammed back into his house, where it was probably warm and toasty.

  My fingers were numb with cold, but I was too clumsy with gloves on so I had to continue bare-handed. I wanted to move slowly so that I could keep Fowler trapped as long as possible, but I also wanted to be able to make a quick getaway if and when Jack ever showed up. Fowler had left his garage door open, and I could hear him opening and closing the door to his house as he looked out to check on me every minute or so. I got the spare tire on, but since I didn’t want Fowler to know I was basically done, I stayed on the pavement, blocking his view of the wheel with my body as I pretended to be hard at work.

  The faint sound of sirens in the distance made my heart beat a little faster. What were the chances those sirens were coming this way, with Jack only a little way ahead of them?

  Fairly good, I decided as the sound came steadily closer. I hurried to tighten everything up and put my tools and flat tire away. If Jack wasn’t just ahead of a posse, then I would be out of excuses to keep Fowler at home, but I had to chance it.

  The sirens were coming ever closer. I was just closing my trunk when a car careened around the corner, the engine roaring as the driver poured on the gas. I grabbed my keys and jumped into the driver’s seat. It was hard to tell how far away the sirens were, but I knew Jack was cutting it ridiculously close. The car he was driving—stolen, no doubt—pulled to a shrieking stop by the curb behind me, and Jack leapt out, still in his Fowler disguise.

  I started the engine and put my car in drive. At that moment, Fowler stuck his head out, either to check on my progress again or to see what the disturbance was. Jack kept his back to the house as he jumped into the car beside me, and I couldn’t tell if there was enough light for Fowler to see his double.

  “Drive!” Jack hollered unnecessarily, hunkering down in the passenger seat and quickly shifting out of his disguise.

  The adrenaline of the moment made me want to shove the gas pedal to the floor, but I knew better. If the police saw me tearing away at top speed, they’d probably assume Fowler had stolen another car and give chase. If I drove away sedately, they probably wouldn’t come after me.

  I glanced out my rearview mirror as I started down the road at a leisurely pace. Fowler took a moment to
frown at Jack’s car, parked so haphazardly by the curb, then shrugged and got into his own, no doubt planning to go about his regularly scheduled business. I don’t think it occurred to him for a moment that the police who came tearing around the corner with lights flashing and sirens blaring were there for him. Why would it?

  I turned at the first corner I came to, getting out of sight as quickly as possible, as Jack started laughing maniacally and slapping the dashboard in glee. I considered taking out my gun and shooting him somewhere it would really hurt.

  “You couldn’t have told me what you were planning?” I asked between gritted teeth. I knew arguing with him was a pointless effort, but I couldn’t help it.

  “And spoil the surprise?” he responded in mock horror, then laughed again. “I wish I could be there to see the cops pick Fowler up. The look on his face must be priceless.”

  “Were you this much of a dick before you became a Liberi?” According to Anderson, the awakening of a Liberi’s powers could change them over time. I had no idea how old Jack was, but I supposed it was in the realm of possibility he’d been a decent human being once upon a time.

  “Hey, I helped you save those two losers from themselves, didn’t I? I didn’t have to do that.”

  For half a second, I almost conceded the point. Then I remembered who I was talking to. “You did it because you thought it would be fun, not because you were being such an upstanding guy.”

  Jack’s eyes glittered in the light from an oncoming car. “Maybe my life before becoming a Liberi wasn’t a whole lot of fun,” he murmured. “Maybe I lived through shit that should have destroyed me, should have made it impossible for me ever to laugh again.” He turned to look at me, his face more serious than I had ever seen it. “Maybe I decided that I deserved to enjoy my new life, and maybe you should stop judging me when you know fuck-all about me.”