Mystery number two: why Stevens hadn’t taken the shot. Reilly had been an easy target.
In fact, they should all be dead. And yet, there hadn’t been a single casualty. Why? Why would a hit man, someone who killed without conscience, show them mercy?
“What did happen?” Alex’s voice, softer now, contained more curiosity than anger.
As Reilly filled Alex in, Lana ran the scene through her mind.
Stevens had hesitated. When she rushed him.
Even though she hadn’t been able to see his face, he’d clearly hesitated. The wavering of his gun. The way he’d shifted his attention between Reilly and her. Not because either one of them posed a particular threat to the assassin, but because of something else. What, she wasn’t sure.
A fixation with Reilly would be natural. After all, Reilly was his target.
But the way Stevens had acted made her think this had something to do with her. The hesitation hadn’t appeared until she’d rushed him, until he’d really been forced to look at her.
It didn’t make any sense. What would make a hit man hesitate?
Fear of capture, maybe. Or doubts about whether or not he could hit the mark.
Neither of which were applicable in this instance.
Or maybe a personal connection.
The idea settled like a box of bullets in her stomach. Could there be some personal connection? Between her and Stevens?
That was insane! Wasn’t it?
Twenty-One
Slam!
Nate jerked. The bland abstract pictures on the wall of his room shook.
Man. Matt was in a mood.
He set the laptop on the floor, pushed up from his chair, and headed for the main living area of their rented cabin. Stepping into the sparsely furnished living room, he leaned against the wall right outside the bedroom door.
It took one glance to see that Matt wasn’t just in a mood. Narrowed eyes, face that resembled a cherry, lips pressed so tightly they almost disappeared, fisted hands, the whole works.
Today’s assignment hadn’t gone well. Clearly.
Matt’s glare zeroed in on him.
“What have you done?” The roar echoed in the room.
What was Matt talking about? He’d been here all afternoon. Hadn’t left or called anyone or anything. Just a little time online, but nothing that would concern Matt.
Matt’s chest heaved and his nose made a faint whistling sound as he exhaled, but other than that the room was silent.
So clearly Matt thought something was his fault. But what? “I didn’t–”
“I froze! Because of you. All I could think about was the way you talked about her and what it would do to you.”
Her?
No doubt Matt referred to Lana – it couldn’t be anyone else – but what did that have to do with Matt’s job? Nate pushed off the wall and took a step closer. “I’m not tracking.”
“She’s a cop!”
“Lana?”
“Who else?”
It couldn’t be true. “Y–you’re wrong. There’s gotta be some mistake.”
“I had a gun. Pointed at her head. There’s no mistake.”
Gun pointed at her head. Nate’s eyes dropped to the rifle still clutched in Matt’s hand. Images of what the bullets could do to Lana’s face seared his mind.
“You didn’t.” The words died on his tongue.
Matt snorted. “The great Stevens couldn’t pull the trigger. I froze like some kinda amateur.”
Was it horrible for him to be glad?
He’d purposely never spent much time thinking about the people Matt was hired to eliminate.
Heck, he’d pretty much decided that they all deserved what they got.
But if Lana was protecting someone and was even willing to die for that person, then his theory had to be flawed. She wouldn’t put her life on the line for someone who was on the wrong side of the law, would she?
Wait.
Details she’d revealed stampeded through his mind. She was helping her brother. It was a recent development. She couldn’t leave him alone. Especially at night. Maybe because she knew that an assassin who only attacked at night was after him?
“Your target. What do you know about him?” Nate’s voice rasped through his tumbleweed throat.
Sharp eyes slid his direction.
He understood the look. Never before had he asked much about his friend’s work.
Or the marks Matt had been hired to take down.
Nevertheless, Matt answered. “Reilly Tanner. Prosecutor. Preacher’s kid. Both parents still alive. One younger sister.”
A younger sister. And she just happened to be the same woman who occupied so many of Nate’s thoughts.
But Reilly wasn’t the name she’d used. She’d called him Justin.
Then again, if her brother was in witness protection, of course she’d call him by another name.
The facts fit. It had to be him.
“Her brother.” Nate cleared his throat. Wished he could clear his thoughts as easily. “You were hired to kill her brother.”
“I don’t care whose brother he is.” Matt’s jaw clenched. “I never leave a job undone.”
If Matt killed Lana’s brother, it would destroy her. Assuming she survived the attack. It’d be just like her to try to stop the bullet with her body.
Matt turned for the door.
“No!” Springing forward, Nate grabbed Matt’s arm. “Let this one go. Please.”
The arm under Nate’s hand tensed. Matt jerked it away. “Let it go? You got any idea what that’d do to my reputation?”
“So what? You said you were gonna retire after this one anyway.”
“All the more reason to get this one right.” Matt poked him in the chest. “Face facts, dude. She played you!”
“Why would she do that, huh? She had no way of knowing I had any connection to you.”
“So you think. Maybe she suspected you all along.” Matt pressed his lips together and pushed a sigh through his nostrils. “Look, I’ll try not to hit her, okay?”
Skirting around him, Nate blocked the door. “Don’t do this.”
The clenched teeth, the ruddy face, the white-fingered grip on the rifle – anyone else and Nate would be concerned. But this was Matt, the guy who’d shielded him from countless bullies. The one person he could trust with his life.
“Get outta my way.” The words ground from between Matt’s lips, which barely moved.
“No.”
“You think you can stop me?”
“I gotta try. You do this, it’ll destroy her–”
A fist bashed his jaw, whipped his head sideways. Nate staggered back a step.
The silence in the cabin was broken only by Matt’s ragged breathing. And the bells pealing inside Nate’s head.
A metallic taste filled his mouth.
Although it’d been years since he’d taken a hit like that, he recognized the taste from his youth. Blood.
He touched the corner of his mouth. The fingers came back with streaked with crimson.
The glare narrowing Matt’s eyes loosened. He rubbed the back of his neck and stared at the ceiling.
“Think how you’d feel if someone killed me.” Nate wiped his fingers on his jeans. “All these years and I’ve never asked you for anything. But I’m asking now.”
The sigh that burst out of Matt seemed to deflate him and he dragged himself to the nearest chair. Collapsing heavily, he let the rifle slip from his fingers and rested his elbows on his knees, angling his head to look up at Nate. “All the chicks in the world and you gotta pick a cop?”
“I didn’t know.”
But he should’ve guessed. The signs had been there.
Skilled at dodging questions while asking plenty of her own, the way her eyes seemed to be constantly moving, the ease with which she spoke without revealing anything personal, they all screamed law enforcement. Not to mention all the martial arts training she claimed to have. How
could he have missed it before?
He crossed to the couch on legs that wobbled beneath his weight. Whether from the shock about Lana, the betrayal of Matt’s punch, or the force of the blow itself, he wasn’t sure.
He swallowed, the bloody taste almost gagging him.
When he looked up, he found Matt’s attention locked on him.
The firm set to Matt’s jaw and his lowered eyebrows screamed the truth. Nate knew his friend well enough to decipher the look. Everything in Matt wanted to pick up his rifle, walk out the door, and end this.
Somehow he had to keep that from happening. He pulled in a long breath and released the words that simmered inside him. “Please. I–I love her.”
“Great.” Matt shook his head. “And what’re you gonna tell her? ‘Hey, Lana. You remember my buddy Matt? Well, guess what. He almost killed you. Yeah, he sometimes goes by Stevens. Small world, huh.’ That’s gonna go over well.”
“I won’t tell her anything. And if you’re retired, who’ll ever know?”
Silence descended with elephantine weight.
If he were a praying man, he’d pray that Matt would agree. But even if God was there, He’d never listen to someone like him.
After what felt like an eternity, Matt sagged against the back of the chair. “Fine. But you know that someone else will be hired, right? Someone who might enjoy killing cops.”
Dang. He hadn’t thought about that. “So don’t tell anyone.”
“Right. At some point the guy who hired me will get tired of waiting and just hire someone else.”
“Maybe they won’t find her. I mean, she’s good, right? She’ll be okay.”
“Maybe.”
“Will you hear about it? If someone else is hired?”
A pause. Matt rubbed his eyes. “Probably. And if not, I can find out.”
“Can you keep me posted?” He wasn’t sure why he wanted to know. Maybe some kind of control thing, not that he had any control over the situation.
A short nod. “How’s your head?”
About as close to an apology as Matt was likely to offer. Nate forced a small smile. “You kidding? You hit like a girl.”
The throbbing in his jaw screamed otherwise.
Matt picked up his rifle and disassembled it, his movements stiff and jerky.
As soon as he finished, he gathered the pieces and left the room without a single word or glance at Nate.
Nate rested his head in his hands. How had it come to this?
A cop. He’d fallen for a cop.
And because of her, he’d ticked off the only family he had.
Had he won that round or did it just feel like it? Even though Matt had agreed to back off, he might change his mind.
Lana was still in danger.
No matter how skilled she was at protecting people, no amount of training could stop a bullet.
₪ ₪ ₪ ₪ ₪
“I’m sorry. I don’t remember your name.”
The man who would’ve dwarfed a linebacker laughed, his deep voice vibrating through Lana’s ribs. “Not a problem. You guys all looked like the walking dead last night, so I’m not surprised. Name’s Johnson, but everyone calls me Pint.”
“I bet there’s a good story in there.”
“You know it. My first gig, the witness was this kid.” He sized her up briefly. “Not much bigger ‘an you, actually. Anyhow, she had some spunk to her and called me pint-sized the whole time. Pint stuck.”
“Nice to meet you. So where are we, anyway?”
“Nebraska.”
She would’ve guessed Kansas, but Nebraska was close. The private airstrip at which they’d landed last night had been surrounded by corn stalks and they’d driven about an hour down a highway that was so straight the vehicle probably could’ve driven itself.
After waking up thirty minutes earlier, she’d peeked out the window of the room she and Alex shared on the second floor to find sun-drenched golden fields as far as the eye could see.
“And so you don’t have to ask,” Pint continued, his voice rumbling from above her. “The guy with the red mop on his head is Gibson, the little guy is Ochoa, and the guy who could stand to lose thirty pounds is Newhart.”
Pictures of the other three deputies she’d met last night popped into her head. Pint had described them perfectly. “Noted. Thanks.”
Pint leaned his elbows on the counter behind him and surveyed her. “So, I gotta tell you, you’re something of a legend. Face to face with Stevens and still breathing. Pretty crazy stuff.”
A legend? Already? “That just happened yesterday. How the heck did you hear about it?”
He grinned, revealing slightly crooked, but startlingly white teeth. “Word travels fast. Why didn’t you take him down?”
“My gun had been tampered with.”
“How’d that happen?”
“There was a guy on the inside. Removed the firing pin. He must’ve messed with it while I was in the shower because I’ve got it on me the rest of the time.”
Pretty gutsy move, too.
Alex or Reilly could’ve walked in on him doing it. Too bad they hadn’t.
“Man, you’ve got some luck, though. I still don’t get why Stevens didn’t cut you all down.”
“Join the club.” The nagging questions continued to dog her. Why hadn’t he killed her? And, more importantly, was it possible that there was a personal connection? Could Stevens be someone she knew?
A friend?
Or relative? There was a lot she didn’t know about her biological family.
Or maybe someone who knew her biological family. But would the family resemblance be enough to stop a killer with no conscience?
She tried to shake off the questions. Her job was to protect Reilly, not solve the mystery of Stevens’ identity.
Besides, if Stevens was someone she knew, someone close enough that he’d spare her life, did she really want to know who he was? Maybe it was better if she never learned the truth.
₪ ₪ ₪ ₪ ₪
“News from the home front.”
Lana shifted from her place on the sofa next to Reilly so she could see Alex better. The meeting had been called as soon as Alex got off the phone with Maxwell. Hopefully it was to give them good news. Two days in this safe house in the middle of Farmville was more than enough.
Everyone – except Chow, who was monitoring the exterior from the camera room – had gathered in the living room. The air felt thick as Lana waited for Alex to begin.
“First, the good news. Word on the street is that Stevens has retired.”
What the…?
That couldn’t possibly be true. Could it? The best hit man in the world, retiring abruptly in the middle of his prime?
“For good?” Pint asked the question that burned in her mind.
“According to our informant, yeah. Confirmed by some buzz online in various weapons communities.”
“Maybe Stevens is tryin’ to fool us. Ya know, lull us into security or somethin’.” Rodriguez crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair.
“Wouldn’t make any sense for him to do that. It’s not like we’d come out of hiding just because he’s not around.”
Lana felt the eyes on her. The weight of speculation.
Let them speculate; it wasn’t like they were wondering anything she hadn’t already asked herself. “Do we know who Rosetti has hired to replace him?”
“No. Maxwell has people looking for that information, but so far we’ve got nothing.” Alex’s gaze rested on Lana for a beat before swinging to Reilly. “There’s one more thing. Garrett’s offering a full confession, including giving up the person behind the shooting, but he says he’ll only do it if Tanner’s there.”
That made about as much sense as Stevens retiring so abruptly.
Even though Reilly worked for the prosecutor’s office, it wasn’t like he could do anything to help Garrett. Even if he wanted to, which he didn’t.
“Why?” L
ana’s question hung in the air.
“He won’t say. Just says that either Reilly’s there or there’s no deal. Normally such a thing would be out of the question, but given that our witness works for the prosecutor’s office,” Alex’s eyes, which had been moving across everyone in the room, came to rest on Reilly, “The prosecutor thought it’d be worth discussing.”
“Let’s do it.”
Reilly’s response came as no surprise, but that didn’t mean she had to like it. “Hold up. Let’s think about this. It could be a trap.”
Turning, Reilly looked at her. “Yeah, it could be. But that’s why I’ve got all of you.”
“Lana’s right.” Severity lined Alex’s words. “It’s incredibly risky. Not only will everyone know where you’ll be, they’ll know the exact time as well.”
“So we come up with a plan to arrive in a manner or at a time that no one would expect. It beats sitting here for a year or more while we wait for this thing to go to trial.”
While Reilly had a point, Lana hesitated to agree to something so dangerous. “Ri, we all want to go home. But this isn’t the safest option.”
Reilly zeroed in on Alex. “What do you think? Can you keep me safe?”
A hint of challenge underscored the words. When she heard it, Lana knew she’d lost.
Alex nodded. “If we take extra precautions, maybe throw in some misdirection, I think we can pull it off.”
“Good.” Reilly’s mouth settled in a grim line. “Let’s get it set up.”
₪ ₪ ₪ ₪ ₪
“He’s hired Freddie Young.”
Any interest Nate had in the television program was gone as Matt’s words sunk in. “Is he good?”
“Good enough.”
Good enough. What did that mean? “So do I need to be worried?”
Hesitation. Never a positive sign.
After a few seconds, Matt sighed. “Young likes to target cops. And family. Your chick falls under both categories.”
Which would make killing her an added bonus.
Matt walked from the room, but Nate barely noticed.
Deadly Alliances Page 25