The Vigilante's Lover #2

by Annie Winters

  “You have no other family?”

  I shake my head. “No. My father was an only child, and Aunt Bea was my mother’s sister.”

  Colette reaches out to squeeze my arm. “You really are alone in this world, aren’t you?”

  It sounds so bleak when she says it. “I want to go with Jax,” I tell her. “I have nothing else.”

  She sighs and starts a slow walk back. “Jax is a charismatic man,” she says. “No one ever wants to leave him.”

  I picture all the women she is probably talking about and frown, but I step alongside her. The cold, stiff weeds crunch as we step on them.

  I don’t really want to go back to the silence of my house, although I am anxious to explore the pantry. But if Colette leaves, so does my only connection to Jax.

  “Can I go with you?” I ask her.

  “Not possible,” she says. “They’d just take you from me and bring you back anyway.”

  “The Vigilantes, you mean?” I ask.

  She nods. “You’re seeing way more of it than you should.”

  “What will happen now?”

  She pauses again and reaches out to stop me from walking farther.

  I sense we are just out of range of whatever devices are inside my house that monitor my activity. I make note of the location and draw a circle in my mind around the perimeter so I can remember.

  “I think you should sell this house and move on with your life,” Colette says.

  “But someone else will end up here.”

  “It will get bought by the people who need to use it.”

  “Oh.” I guess the Vigilantes can do anything they want.

  She starts back to the house.

  “Will I be able to get hold of Jax?”

  She shakes her head. “Nobody gets in touch with him unless he wants it.”

  “Can I get in touch with you?”

  Colette stops again. “Mia, I’m sorry Jax mixed you up in this. I know it looks like an exciting life. But there’s no way to let you in. I’m sorry.”

  We head back in silence, finally arriving on the back porch. Her voice changes to something more formal, like her words are being monitored for quality assurance.

  “We have some security that will watch over you,” she says. “But they are not invading your privacy. No one is recording your activity or listening in. They just pay attention to who might arrive and make sure they are not a problem.”

  If they’re not listening, then why is she talking like this? My hair prickles on my neck.

  “Would that happen?” I ask. “Would somebody come here?”

  She hesitates. “No. You will be safe.” She leans forward and kisses me on one cheek, then the other. “Take care, Mia.”

  Then she’s walking to her car.

  I watch the fancy BMW fire up and head down the lane. I don’t go in the house right away. I plunk down on the porch step. I feel absolutely bereft. She’s my only connection to Jax. And now she’s gone. They’re all gone.

  I lean my head against the banister and let myself fall into a nice hard pity party. I’m alone. Nowhere to go. Nothing but this rambling house that somehow brought Jax to me only to have him leave again. There’s no way to find him. If the Vigilantes can’t track him, then I have no hope.

  I stand up again. Unless there’s something in the pantry that can help me.

  I have to look.

  8: Jax

  I figure Mia is home by now. It’s been six hours.

  Sam guides us to a Vigilante outpost that is hidden beneath a donut shop. I’m sitting out in the parking lot with an ancient heat cloak blocking my body signature.

  Meanwhile, Sam’s inside ordering a cinnamon roll.

  The cloak is stifling with the sun coming through the window. It has a clear pane I can see through, but I feel like a damn antique sitting here with it.

  Sam has stolen and repaired too much tech since I’ve been out of prison, and he’s not pleased with how I destroyed his last efforts.

  Therefore, I’m stuck under an old cloak that smells like Old Spice.

  My thoughts keep straying to Mia. I wonder what she’s up to, back at home, puttering around her rambling old house.

  Because I have nothing else to do, I pull out an IdentiPad and look up Georgiana Powers, who ran that safe house until the period where Klaus arrives and is reported dead. The house is decommissioned and Powers leaves.

  Meanwhile, I’m in jail and don’t know any of this and send letters to Klaus at this house. Mia gets them and writes back.

  I can’t concentrate.

  My mind drifts to her last letter, the sentence she had written when I found her at the safe house. Something about ripping her gown to expose her naked hips.

  I picture her in the barn, lying in the hay, her wrists tied over her head. Every wiggle makes her breasts sway deliciously, and her body is warm around my fingers.

  Focus, Jax.

  I won’t see her again. Normally this isn’t an issue. The women through the years are a blur. Vegas. LA. New York. Berlin. Paris.

  But something about Mia is different. It’s better I stay far away.

  I keep reading. Was Georgiana Mia’s aunt?

  Georgiana Powers was born to two Vigilantes and entered the program in 1960 at the age of fifteen. Her stellar record during the Vietnam War got her Phase Six status by the age of twenty with a specialty in long-range weapons.

  Then her parents were seriously injured in action and took charge of the safe house as a semi-retirement. They were only nominally involved with the network, since that safe house was rarely used.

  Georgiana took over the house in the late ’70s and stayed there until her health failed six months ago.

  I set down the pad. The information matches the timeline Mia told me. But there is no mention of a sister or a niece. Maybe all that was wiped when Mia was declared a special.

  The door opens and Sam gets back in the car.

  “Easy as pie,” he says as he starts the car. “Two Vs are stationed here during the day, mostly monitoring system backups.” He grins. “Which means we have backups.”

  He exits the parking lot. When we get out on the road, he says, “You can take that cloak off now.”

  I pull the damn thing down, sweat trickling down my neck. “Why wasn’t your car cloaking me?”

  Sam laughs. “It was.”

  “What the hell?”

  “Just a little joke since you’re causing me all this trouble.”

  Asshole. “So who’s there at night?” I ask. Back to business.

  Sam smacks his hands on the steering wheel. “That’s the beauty. They rely on electronic surveillance. Nobody thinks these old backups are worth the manpower.”

  I toss the cloak in the backseat. “When do we head back?”

  “Just after midnight,” Sam says.

  I stare out the window. The pine trees whizzing by still make me think of Mia. Probably I’ll never come through this part of the country again without picturing her in that field behind a tractor, strips of her gown falling off her body to the ground.

  But she’s safe now.

  9: Mia

  The rug slides easily out of the pantry and into the kitchen. I kneel on the floor, running my fingers along the edges of the hatch door. There is no obvious way to open it. The floor is smooth other than the rectangular crack.

  There has to be a way. I’m willing to bet a lot of money that the mouse got into the house when Jax opened this door, and then the little guy got stuck in my kitchen, unable to get back. I suppress a shudder. I will not be afraid of a mouse.

  I crawl along the floor. The hatch is fairly big, a couple feet wide and probably four feet long. I wonder if it’s like those old stereo cabinets that didn’t have a handle. You had to press the right spot to trigger a mechanism to make them pop open.

  Hopefully there’s not some spy gadget required to unlock it.

  I spend a solid half hour pressing on sections of the hatch, and
still nothing. Now I’m starting to suspect that there’s a lever hidden somewhere, like a secret bookcase that opens when you pull on the right book.

  But this pantry has been thoroughly cleaned out. I spent hours a day doing it while Aunt Bea was sick. I had little else to do. I don’t think there’s a single jar or box or shelf that wasn’t moved or touched during that time.

  I plop down on the floor, frustrated. I don’t want to rip out the wood planks, but if that’s what it takes, I will do it. I have an axe in the outside shed.

  The thought of an axe makes me picture Jax in the barn, shirtless, wielding one when we were interrupted in the hay.

  It’s fully dark now, so maybe all this can wait until morning. I feel a little spooked about walking outside. Even though Colette said the house was being watched, I can’t help but wonder who the real enemy is.

  If only Jax would come. I wonder if he is like that vampire in Twilight, the one who liked Bella. She put herself in danger on purpose, just to make him show up to save her.

  But then, Edward actually loved Bella.

  Jax doesn’t care one whit about me. He pawned me off on Colette the first chance he got.

  Even after what happened in the hay.

  And what didn’t happen.

  I wander the house, turning on every single light. The solitude is suffocating. When I get to the bedroom, my throat tightens at the sight of the letters still scattered on the bed and floor. The sheets are all askew. I sit down and pick up one of the pages. My heart squeezes as I read a line.

  Along the smooth plane of your naked back, I tie a lover’s knot, one side black, the other red.

  I set it back down. No more letters. No more excitement. No more Jax.

  I peel off the pantsuit from Armond. I have another long white nightgown like the one Jax destroyed, but I leave it in the drawer. I put on a pair of flannel pajamas instead. I don’t even know what to do now, so I pick up all the letters and tuck them back inside the box on my side table.

  The wind rushes against the window, making me shiver. I have always liked being alone, but I don’t now.

  I flop backwards on the bed and stare at the ceiling. At least I have the memories. I sort through each moment from that first night. Waking up. Seeing Jax at the end of the bed, my ankle on his shoulder. His knife slicing through my gown, right until we heard the alarm —

  I sit up straight. The lampshade. It had some sort of device in it.

  I hurry over to it. I peer inside, but all I can see are ordinary things. The off-white shade. Wires that hold it in place. The bulb and the screw top where it attaches to the pole. A heavy base and the wire to the wall.

  That’s right. Jax took the alarm with him. It was small and oval.

  I close my eyes and try to picture it. I was terrified then, but it still sticks in my mind.

  There has to be another one somewhere.

  I head into my aunt’s old bedroom, where two lamps flank her oversized bed. Sorrow wells up that she is no longer there. Even her frail body tucked under the covers was a type of company. I still had someone.

  I wonder what she would think if she could see me now.

  I check the lamps. The first one has nothing in it.

  But in the second? Yes. There it is. Another small oval device attached to the wire, pressed against the shade so you wouldn’t notice it.

  I pull it out and hold it in my hand. Will it know I’ve found it? Does it have a heat sensor or motion detector?

  No alarm goes off. Nothing happens. I examine it closely. Jax said it was seriously old tech. It’s just a piece of plastic, maybe half an inch thick, shaped like an oval. There’s a little vent on the bottom. I guess that lets the sound come out for the alarm.

  It must have some sort of sensor inside.

  I should smash it, look at its insides. But I don’t know what that would tell me. I couldn’t do anything smart like reverse engineer the receptor so that I could see where the signal comes from, how it knows the house is compromised.

  Besides, this wouldn’t bring me Jax. It would only alert more people like the silo guards or that Sutherland man.

  Still, this bit of plastic, cold and hard, is my only connection to the Vigilantes. The only proof that they are real. I hold it tight and take it back to my bedroom.

  I go to sleep with all the lights on, and the alarm beside me on the pillow.

  10: Jax

  The donut shop is silent and still when Sam pulls up.

  “I’ll buzz you when I have the heat detectors down,” he says. “Then you can stroll on in.”

  I watch him as he crosses the lot and deactivates the door locks. He pauses by a plastic bin and peers inside, extracting a bear claw from beneath a sign that says “Day-old pastries.”

  That Sam.

  He disappears through swinging doors behind the counter.

  This part of town is quiet and dark. It’s a poor section, judging by the sagging facades of the buildings, and the asphalt outside the car is cracked and broken. This donut shop isn’t a chain, but some mom-and-pop shop. Probably retired Vigilantes who wanted a small business. Since they’re covering for an outpost, they don’t even have to turn a profit. Just make their pastries and work whatever hours suit them.

  Easy life.

  Not for me. But easy.

  The screen on the dash lights up. Sam’s face appears. “Come on in¸ boss. Don’t forget to activate the clone ID.”

  I click on the key chain that bears the electronic signature of a young man whose Vigilante status is pending. The records will show him coming into service about 24 hours earlier than he is actually activated, but this window allows me to come into an outpost without incident.

  I enter the door and am hit with the powerful scent of sugar. Working with Sam is always a trial of fighting junk food. Once he officially hit Phase Ten as a tech guy, he was eligible to skip ongoing military training. And he did. Best day of his life, he claims.

  I prefer to stay in solid fighting shape, regardless of my class.

  Just beyond the swinging doors is a pantry. Inside it is an elevator.

  This must be the way.

  Like most Vigilante elevators, there are no buttons. If you get in at the top, you get out at the bottom. It’s a steel trap with no emergency exits. Most are equipped with gas jets as well, whatever poison the Vigilantes want to give you, nerve or sleeping or laughing or death.

  The car stops and the doors slide open. Sam is hunched over a keyboard connected to six older-model screens. No slick glass displays here. Not surprising, since it’s a storage for backups. The room is bare, just concrete walls lined with wires that lead to this main console. Off to one side are metal cabinets that house more backup units. Still, there will be hidden security.

  “Klaus is gone from the system like you said,” Sam says, munching on the pastry as he scrolls through code. “He exited six months ago with his death at the safe house.”

  “What about before?” I drop onto a stool next to Sam.

  “I pulled the backups. It’s all the stuff we know. You nabbed him from the German syndicate. Lots of our exploits in Vegas. Your move to the West Coast syndicate and hiring him on.”

  “What about the night I killed Singer? He was there.”

  “Nothing in the system or on backup.”

  “Jovana?”

  Sam taps at the keys. “Still has the special status she had when you were with her. No records.”

  Damn. “Look up anything else that might have been deleted the day Klaus was reported dead.”

  Sam wipes the back of his hand across his mouth. “Killer pastries here,” he says as he types. “Okay, so there is some deleted security footage in the head syndicate. A meeting. Klaus was in the room. Sutherland. And a special.”

  “Jovana,” I say.

  “I’d bet on it,” Sam says. “This is where they planned Klaus’s disappearance. The timeline is right.”

  “Sutherland is in on it.”

 
“This is bad, dude.” Sam glances around at the corners of the room. “Glad this is an old outpost. We’d be dead already if we were monitored.”

  “Can you trace a special even if she doesn’t have a name?”

  “Sure, they still have IDs.” Sam’s voice is strained. “This is all we should do, Jax. Now that we know how high it goes, we have to kill this query.”

  I nod. “Let’s just check that one thing.”

  He taps, but his expression is grim. “Here we go. That special pops up in an altercation at an MMA fight in Vegas three months ago. Doesn’t say what. But I have the date and location. Apparently there was a bit of a tiff over compromised security. Footage went viral of a couple fighting.”

  I lean in and note the information. “I have friends in Vegas still.”

  “I remember those days,” Sam says. He powers the computers down. “We were always getting mixed up with the illegal MMA fights there.”

  “Fun times,” I say.

  We head back to the elevator. Sam watches the corners anxiously, and I know he’s thinking about the gas.

  When we’re back out in the parking lot, he says, “You know I can’t do a damn thing now that we know this goes to the top.”

  “I know it,” I say. “I need to be the only dead man walking.”

  He claps me on the back. “Good luck, man.”

  I stride back to the Vigilante car. Sam looks forlorn, like he’s never going to see me again.

  He should know better. Nothing’s gotten to me yet.

  11: Mia

  The next morning I head out to Aunt Bea’s old shed for the axe. I sling it over my shoulder like a badass as I head back into the kitchen.

  I’m going to get in that hatch, even if I have to destroy the floor.

  More breadcrumbs are scattered across the counter. I should have thrown the food out. But at least if I keep the mouse fed, it will stay in this room and not explore the house.

  I shudder and almost drop the axe.

  Don’t think about the mouse, Mia.