He dangled a long strand of her hair in front of her.
“Hold this,” he demanded.
She stared at her hair as he shook it in front of her. With trembling fingers, she gripped her hair. Seconds later he placed his cell phone in front of them.
“Smile pretty for the camera.” He pressed his face against hers as she held the strand of hair in front of them.
A sob bubbled up her throat as he wrenched the strand of hair from her.
“Touch a hair on her head and I’ll kill you.”
Relief and fear careened through Cassie with the sound of Jake’s voice. His tone was lethal in a way she’d never heard before. To hear that kind of deadly emotion in any other man’s voice would have Cassie trembling. But to hear Jake’s voice at all filled her with relief so strong her knees weakened and threatened not to hold her any longer. Jake was alive. Thank you God, he hadn’t been killed. But the relief was short-lived. Jake was unarmed.
“Too late.”
Abruptly, the stranger wrapped his arm around Cassie’s neck with the hand holding the knife and swung her around. Her head jerked back with the force of his blow. The gun discharged, the noise of it like an explosion in her ear. A scream ripped through her. She hadn’t seen Jake behind them and when the gunman finally turned her around, using her body to shield himself, Jake was gone.
“Jake! Oh, God, no. You shot him!” she screamed.
“Shut up, bitch!”
Fury erupted, violent and blinding, from the depths of Cassie’s core. With her left hand, she gripped the gunman's wrist like a vice, only marginally concerned with keeping the knife he held from slicing her skin. Flattening her right hand, tight and strong, Cassie delivered a quick thrust to his other hand, unleashing all her fury and sending the 45 caliber, that had only moments ago been pressed against her temple, flying out of the gunman’s hand.
One small victory had her taking a quick breath, but the element of surprise was vital in survival and she knew the shock she’d given her attacker would quickly fade.
“Let her go!”
Jake’s voice boomed and echoed against the walls of the cabin. To her great relief, Jake now held the gun out in front of him in both hands. An ax lay on the floor where he stood with his legs spread slightly apart.
Her attacker pressed the knife snug up against Cassie’s throat, the razor-sharp blade grazing her skin. Cassie sucked in a breath to keep the knife from pressing against her any further. One wrong move and the blade would go deep and cut her artery. She’d bleed to death all over the floor before any help could come.
“Shooting me isn’t going to get you what you want, Santos,” the man said. “Your bullet goes in me and the knife is going to come back with me, taking this pretty little head off with it.”
Cassie heard the twisted smile in his voice. She zeroed in on Jake’s face, his eyes focused on the man who seemed to be taking pleasure in her murder. There was hate there, something she’d yet to see in Jake. His square jaw was clenched tight, his body rigid but fully in control.
“Who sent you?”
“Who said anyone did?”
“You have Warlords written all over you,” Jake bit back. “Fagnelio must be desperate, to send a rank amateur.”
Jake’s eyes never wavered from his target.
Those were clearly not words the man holding her wanted to hear. “Shut the fuck up! You know nothing! You’re both dead whether you kill me or not.”
His grip eased just a notch as his anger rose. The knife wobbled against her neck.
Cassie couldn’t take it. Bloodshed was going to happen one way or another. It was just a matter of whose blood would be spilled. Too much was out of control.
“Don’t tell me you drove all the way out here just for the clean air.” Jake took a microscopic step toward them.
Cassie balled her fists and concentrated all her effort in keeping her right arm locked and rock solid. The blade held against her skin only needed to move an inch or so away in order to give her a window of opportunity.
“What do they make you for bringing home the prize?” Jake taunted, motioning to the strand of hair the man was still holding. “Their promises mean nothing. Fagnelio is in such deep shit he doesn’t care who he’s taking down with him. You do the deed and then they’ll just kill you. That’s how it works, you know. Did they tell you?”
The man’s agitation grew by leaps. He took in a deep breath and his hand moved just enough for Cassie to slip her left hand up and grab the wrist holding the knife. She held on for dear life. A split second later, she rammed her right elbow square into the dirtbag’s diaphragm, forcing him to hunch forward, throw his arms out, and loosen his hold as he lost all his breath.
Something instinctive took over her and had Cassie pivoting so she stood behind him. She delivered a punch to his gonads from behind and wound the hand still gripping his through his legs, making him hunch forward even more and teeter on his toes. One swift movement and she rammed him head first into the woodstove, knocking him unconscious.
Her heart still hammering, Cassie stepped back against the counter. It had all happened in seconds and now it was over. Jake rushed to the man sprawled out on the floor, checking for more weapons. He put a finger to his neck to check for a pulse.
With her hands covering her mouth, she glanced down at the pine floor where the knife had dropped. Her eyes fixed on the dark clump of hair. She’d seen him do it, watched him dangle it in front of her face as he snapped his evidence picture. But what he’d done finally sank in. It was her hair on the floor. Her body he’d touched. She shuddered with the memory.
Her hand went to the back of her head where she’d felt the tug earlier, searching for the spot where her hair had been cut away. She found it and twirled at the ends of freshly cut pieces of hair between her thumb and index finger.
Jake picked up the knife and the lock of hair, staring at it for a moment before turning to her.
“There might be more like him out there. We have to get out of here now.”
Cassie looked at the hair in Jake’s hand.
“That’s mine,” she said quietly.
Jake looked at her with eyes that mirrored the terror she felt inside. “I know.”
Minutes later Jake drove the Jeep up a small rise in the road. Cassie didn’t know if the wheels had left the ground or not, but she felt her body rise and then bounce down into the seat with the force as if they’d gone airborne. Her neck stung, hot and biting, where the knife had dug into her skin. Her body trembled violently as the magnitude of what had just transpired fully hit her.
Cassie had almost been killed. For the third time!
At the bar, Cassie had methodically gone over details with Jake, taking comfort in knowing that although she’d been at the wrong place at the wrong time, the violence she’d witnessed was not intended for her personally. The safe house was another story. Someone intended for her and Jake to die in that explosion, and it was by Jake’s quick action and the grace of God that they’d made it out before the house disintegrated into a pile of ash and fiery rubble.
Today it was so much worse. She’d seen the burning death wish in the eyes of the man who wanted her dead.
“Jake, that wasn’t an FBI agent,” Cassie finally said weakly. They hadn’t spoken for a few miles. Jake concentrated on the road and Cassie had retreated inside herself to find some of the peace she craved.
“I know.” Jake glanced quickly at her before returning his eyes to the road. He turned the heat in the Jeep on full blast.
He’d brought the lock of hair with him, placing it out of view in the glove compartment. She didn’t know why. It couldn’t be reattached. Any evidence of that altercation with that man was in plain view on the cell phone he’d used to take her picture. But Jake had taken the strand of hair anyway and hidden it out of her view. Cassie knew it was there. She couldn’t ignore it.
She looked down at herself and realized that in their haste she’d left tha
t ridiculously big wool coat behind. She hadn’t felt the cold when she climbed into the Jeep. She’d felt numb, unable to feel anything at all. But now the shock of what had happened was all too vivid.
Remembering the vileness of the man’s eyes, she said, “He was little more than a boy, Jake.”
“Don’t kid yourself. He may have been younger than you, but he’d have killed you and me without remorse. He nearly succeeded.”
“But he didn’t.”
“No.”
“Was he dead? Did I…kill him?” Her bottom lip wobbled uncontrollably and a sob bubbled up her throat.
“No,” Jake said tightly and Cassie had the distinct feeling that Jake wished she had. He took his eyes off the road and looked at her, hard and resolute. “No, Cassie. You didn’t kill him. But you had every right to. If you hadn’t been able to get that gun out of his hand, most likely we’d both be dead right now. You did what you had to do. He’ll probably come to in a little while and have one hell of an egg on his head for his efforts. I’d say he got off with more than he deserved.”
Tears streamed down her cheeks. “He wasn’t an agent.”
“Angel sent him.” Jake’s expression was grim as he glanced at the glove compartment. “That lock of hair was meant as proof. The picture was proof, too.”
“Proof of what?”
“That he’d been successful at his initiation. A lot of street gangs have their own signature. When a new recruit kills, he brings back a piece of his victim as proof.”
“He could have cut a piece of hair from anyone.”
“He could have, but if he presented it as proof to his leaders and they found out the truth, he’d be killed, too. To them it is honor, courage. It’s a good thing he took it one step further and wanted a picture of you as his proof. He might have killed you before I found you.”
“They have no respect for human life at all,” she said quietly. “I can’t figure out how he knew we were at the cabin.”
Jake glanced at her, his blue-eyed gaze intense. “You have a face that is unforgettable, Cassie.”
Jake’s softly spoken words wrapped around her, easing her burden and igniting something deeper.
It wasn’t just that she was recognizable. Her face was very likely the first thing people had seen when they read the newspaper during their morning coffee. She hadn’t been on the front page of the newspaper yesterday. She’d checked the vending machine at the truck stop when they’d stopped for breakfast. But that didn’t mean anything.
She looked down at her trembling hands and saw blood staining them. She snapped her head up in alarm.
Jake reached out and clasped the hand closest to him. “You have blood on your shirt and on your neck. The knife most likely cut the outer skin during the struggle.” He sighed heavily, dragged his hand over his head. “It could have killed you. Do you feel it.”
Did she? Yes, her neck stung a little. She was too afraid to touch it for fear of what she might find. “I think it’s just a surface cut.”
“The blood is drying. It can’t be a deep cut. But we’ll have to clean that up when we get settled somewhere. You’re not going to pass out, are you?”
Cassie shook her head. “We can’t go anywhere, Jake. They’ll find us. If they found me at Maureen’s cabin, of all places, they’ll find me anywhere.”
He reached across the seat and slipped his wide hand, warm and reassuring, over hers. She wanted the comfort, but didn’t think there was a chance in hell she’d ever feel comfort again.
#
Chapter Eleven
They’d driven little over an hour east and across the Massachusetts border until Jake found a little blink-of-an-eye town that had a motel on Main Street with a brightly lit neon sign that half spelled out the words “vacancies with kitchenette.” It was set back from the road and had a parking lot in the back of the building. Satisfied that the Jeep wouldn’t be seen from the road, he pulled into the parking lot and parked far enough away from the windows so the desk clerk couldn’t see Cassie in the Jeep.
“I’ll only be a minute,” he said as he threw open the door. “If you see any cars at all, coming or going, I want you to hunch down.”
Cassie nodded.
Jake hurried the registration along while trying not to clang any warning bells. He emptied his wallet of nearly all of its cash to pay for the room under an assumed name, being occupied only by him, and listed the license plate for his own car, not the Jeep’s.
Cassie was staring straight ahead and didn’t move as he climbed into the Jeep and fired up the engine to park it in the back.
They still had three bags of groceries they’d picked up earlier. He pulled them out of the back seat, looking around while Cassie unlocked the motel room door and switched on the light.
The low wattage bulb only slightly illuminated the room in a warm yellow glow. As advertised, a small kitchenette with compact refrigerator stood directly in front of them, next to the bathroom door. An ancient television on a flimsy stand stood next to the sharp-lined, ugly, muted green sofa that dominated the other wall. He looked beyond the room to a door that was slightly ajar.
“The bedroom must be back there. The clerk said the room had a separate bedroom.” Jake dropped the grocery bags on the coffee table.
Cassie stood in the middle of the room, looking at all its drabness, hugging herself.
He moved past her to the bedroom door, flicked on the light, which seemed incredibly harsh compared to the barely glowing bulb in the first room, and stepped aside for her to see.
“Only one twin bed,” she muttered, glancing in. “Did he mention that?”
Jake nodded. “I’ll take the sofa.”
Her head rose and her eyes flared.
“If you want to play fair, I’ll flip you for it later.”
Cassie seemed satisfied and reached for one of the grocery bags, pulling items out and setting them on top of the coffee table. When all three bags were empty, she frowned, picking up a package of hamburger buns.
“I think the frozen hamburger patties were in the bag I brought into the cabin.”
“Given the circumstances, I think I can live without them.” Jake wondered when Cassie’s dam would finally break. He could feel the cracks widening in himself and couldn’t fathom how Cassie was keeping herself together.
He reached for the ointment and gauze they’d bought for the scrape on Cassie’s neck from the night before, during the explosion. Her white cotton shirt was now stained with crimson streaks and blotches. Jake tore the package of gauze open and laid it down on the coffee table.
“Here, sit down while I get a wet towel to clean these cuts.”
Cassie did as she was told. Jake held his hand under the faucet, waiting for the cold tap water to turn warm, then doused a white terrycloth hand towel he’d pulled from the towel rack.
He knelt on the floor in front of her and pushed her long, dark hair back to expose her wounds. His mind raced to the lock of hair dangling from that dirtbag’s hand when he walked into the cabin, and he grimaced.
“It’s that bad?” Cassie’s face flashed with alarm.
“No. Just a surface cut. Looks like the scab was torn off the scrape you got the other night too.”
He opened the bottle of hydrogen peroxide and poured some on a gauze square. “This might sting.”
She smiled weakly.
As he dabbed the soaking gauze pad against her neck and watched the bubbles flare, Jake found it hard to get the terrifying image of Cassie’s attacker out of his brain. If he closed his eyes, it was if he were there again, seeing Cassie’s head bent back with the force of the gun pressed tight against her temple.
“Where did you learn how to do those moves back there?” he asked.
“Maureen and I took a self-defense class a few years ago. It was all about empowerment and showing that no matter your size or your strength, a woman could defend herself from an attack. I always wondered if I’d remember what to do if it ever h
appened to me.”
Jake forced a smile. “Now you know.”
“Yes,” Cassie said with a sigh.
Jake finished cleaning out her old wound and then dressed the area with gauze in silence as Cassie stared back at him. Her sable eyes bore into him in a way he couldn’t ignore.
“You’re all set,” he said, getting to his feet.
“Are you hungry?”
His stomach was grumbling, mostly from the bag of potato chips they’d dug into in the Jeep. He glanced at the groceries, still strewn about on the coffee table.
“You sit back and relax,” he said. “I can fix us something edible, I’m sure.”
“You take good care of me, Jake.” She leaned her body closer to him as she sat on the edge of the sofa. She planted her hands on her knees and pushed herself up until she stood right in front of him.
He held his breath, wanting just to bend his head and get a fraction closer to her. He couldn't kiss her. He knew he shouldn't. That didn't mean he didn't want to with every ounce of his being.
“I make a mean chicken soup,” he said softly, picking up one of the cans on the table.
“You don't have to cook for me to take care of me.”
“No?”
She shook her head and licked her lips.
Good Lord, how Jake wanted to kiss her. What he wouldn't do to just forget all the reasons he couldn't and celebrate all the reasons he should cover her mouth with his. Forget his damned code of ethics. Forget Angel Fagnelio and all the scumbags of the world who inflicted pain for pleasure. All he wanted to do—no, needed to do—was kiss Cassie and feel her small body next to his. He needed it as much as he needed his next breath.
Jake gazed down at her, saw the moon and the stars shining in her warm brown eyes, felt the very earth beneath his feet shift.
“We keep playing this game, you and me, but we never take the next step.” Her voice was like silk running over his skin, soft, feminine and enticing.
“Is that what you really want?”
She nodded without hesitation. With her deep sigh, her chest rose and stretched taut the stained cotton shirt she wore, defining the delicious swells of her breasts.
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