by Anne Stuart
“And you do?”
“I’ve known him for a long time. I trusted him. I know the way he thinks.”
There was no pain in James’s voice. Nothing but simple common sense. Annie grabbed the duffel bag and slung it over her shoulder, prepared to follow him. “Don’t you care?”
He was already out the door, and he didn’t pause, tossing the question back at her. “About what?”
“About Clancy being dead. You were friends. Close friends, it sounds like. Doesn’t it bother you?”
He started down the narrow stairs, and she almost missed his reply. “I’m used to it.”
He didn’t need to tell her to be quiet, to do as he said. She’d already learned the drill. She melted into the shadows behind him, moving almost as noiselessly as he did. The sky was just beginning to turn a paler blue, off to the east, and she glanced down at the luminous dial on her watch. Just a little before five.
“Is anyone here?” she whispered.
“Two, maybe three operatives,” James said. “Probably Carew’s men, and that’s bad enough. If the one who did Clancy is out there too, we’re in trouble.”
“You mean we weren’t before?” she asked wryly.
Once more he froze, looking down at her. “You pick a hell of a time to develop a sense of humor.” He didn’t give her time to respond. “Stay put.”
A moment later he vanished into the darkness, leaving her alone in the kitchen.
She took a deep breath, then realized absently that her palms were sweating, her heart was pounding, and her breath was ragged. She was frightened.
It shouldn’t have surprised her. As she stood motionless in the empty house, she knew what she was listening for. The sound of gunshots. The sound of James’s death.
It all seemed so unreal. She wanted to cross the room, flick on the lights, turn on a radio. She wanted noise, she wanted normalcy. This had to be a bad dream.
But unbidden, the memory of Clancy’s body came back to her. And she knew it was no dream.
She slid down to the tile floor, pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around her legs. She was cold, she was frightened, and if she had any sense at all she would have never embarked on this fool’s errand, where nothing was as it seemed. She would die, alone in this kitchen, and there’d be no one to mourn her. She put her head down on her knees, closing her eyes, concentrating. The dawn was perfectly still.
“Annie?”
She almost screamed, but he slapped his hand over her mouth so quickly that her head slammed against the wall. She couldn’t see him in the darkness, but she knew him—the sound of his voice and the feel of him. He gauged her acceptance perfectly, dropping his hand when she no longer needed to scream.
“You startled me,” she whispered. “I didn’t hear you come back.”
“You weren’t supposed to,” James said.
“Is there anyone out there?”
“Not now,” he said calmly. “I think I know where Clancy would have left a car for us. There’s an old shed halfway down the hillside that looks about his style. Let’s go.”
She scrambled to her feet, once again loath to let him touch her. She didn’t know why she thought he’d want to. But it was there, between them. And she knew he would touch her. Sooner or later.
There was a faint, unexpected scent on the morning air. Metallic, sulfurous, caught on the drifting breeze. She tried to ignore it as she followed James down an overgrown path in the dawning light, tried not to test the air for other, more desperate odors.
“James,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper. She half hoped he wouldn’t hear her, but he was aware of everything, and he stopped for a moment, though he didn’t bother to turn around.
“What?”
The light was growing brighter now. Faint slivers of peach and rose spreading over the tangled hillside. If anyone was watching, they would be perfect targets, and yet James seemed momentarily unconcerned.
“Is there such a thing as a blood lily?”
He didn’t answer. He just started walking again down the hillside. And she had no choice but to follow, fighting back the horrifying knowledge that threatened to overwhelm her.
She didn’t need more than a pointed look from him when they reached the clearing by the old shed. She squatted down in the bushes, out of sight, preparing to wait for him.
He had his gun—she could see it as he paused outside the shed door. Odd, how she couldn’t get used to the sight of weapons. Her father had always been contemptuous of handguns, and Annie had followed his beliefs. Now she was becoming very grateful for their existence.
He disappeared inside the shed, and she held her breath, listening. For the explosion of gunfire, for the sound of a struggle. For his voice telling her it was all right to follow him into the darkened interior.
Nothing.
The sun was just coming up behind her, and the eerie half-light was turning sharp and bright. She told herself she could count to one hundred, she told herself she’d do it in French just to make it slower. By the time she got to quatre-vingt dix-huit she knew she couldn’t wait any longer, and she rose, half expecting a bullet to slam into the back of her head.
When she first stepped inside the shed she couldn’t see him. The light was murky, with only faint slivers of sunlight fighting their way through the cracks in the old wood. He was standing in the corner, dark and silent, and she followed his gaze, half expecting a corpse.
“Hell and damnation,” she said with a mix of horrified amusement and exasperation. “He left us a motorcycle.”
“Not just any motorcycle.” James’s voice was odd, muffled, distant. “It’s a Vincent Black Shadow. Probably 1954 or thereabouts.”
“So he left us an old motorcycle,” Annie said. “Do you think it will still run?”
“It’ll run,” James said. He tossed a helmet at her, and she caught it, watching as he pulled his own on. With his dark clothes and his height he looked absurdly dangerous.
“I wouldn’t have thought you’d be the type to worry about helmets,” she said, pulling her own on.
“I’m not. They make us harder to recognize.” He climbed onto the motorcycle with the studied grace of someone who knew exactly what he was doing.
“I take it you know how to ride one of these things?”
“Yes.”
“Did Clancy know that about you?”
“Yes.”
“I assume this motorcycle has some sentimental value—”
“Get the fuck on the back of the bike, Annie, and stop talking,” he said in a harsh voice. “We need to get out of here, not waste time discussing hobbies.”
She did her best to appear nonchalant as she came up to him. She knew what she had to do—there was an obvious place for her directly behind him on the wide seat. All she had to do was throw her leg over and climb on. She didn’t move.
“What are you waiting for?”
“I’ve never ridden a motorcycle before,” she admitted, looking at the huge black machine with distrust.
“I should have known. Win kept you in a bell jar, didn’t he? His perfect dancing princess, without a thought or a care of her own. Throw your goddamned leg over the bike and hold on.”
“But—“ She didn’t have time for any more arguments. He caught her arm and yanked her, and she could either mount it or knock it, and them, over. She settled on the back gingerly.
“Put your arms around my waist,” he growled.
She didn’t want to do that either. “Isn’t there someplace I can hold on … ?” Her voice trailed off in a squeak as he grabbed her wrists and hauled her against him. Her breasts were squashed against his broad back, but she had enough sense not to release him.
The engine roared to life. It didn’t sound like a forty-year-old machine—it sounded new and elegant. A moment later they were speeding out into the dazzling sunlight, and all she could do was shut her eyes and try to keep from screaming.
She lost
track of time. She was afraid to open her eyes, afraid to open her mind. As they sailed down the hill, she could still feel those eyes watching her. Still feel the target at the back of her neck.
She could feel his heart beat through their bodies. Two thin T-shirts separated them, and she could feel his heat, his bones, his breath, and his pulse as he gunned the motor and took them farther and farther away from that lovely little cottage with the stench of death all around it.
She couldn’t rest her face against his back with the helmet in the way, a mixed blessing. All she could do was trust him, completely. She’d made her choice, and now she’d stick with it.
It no longer mattered where they were going. She’d thrown in her lot with him. She tightened her hands around his waist and hung on, shutting off her mind.
* * *
The Vincent purred beneath him, a magnificent machine from a better age. He glanced down at it in the bright sunlight. Probably as old as he was, perhaps older. A fitting farewell present from his old friend Clancy.
He told himself it didn’t matter. Clancy had lived with the reality of death for as long as James had, knowing it could appear, unexpected, at any time. He’d come to their aid knowing it might mean his end, and he’d come willingly. Something else would have gotten to him sooner or later. He’d made too many enemies along the way, and Carew, or whatever asshole was behind all this, had too powerful a network.
James had learned not to feel guilt or regret. Not to mourn, not even to think about the past. He’d examined Clancy’s body with detached calm, trying to pinpoint the trigger man’s style, how long he’d been dead, etc., before he’d hauled Annie’s ass back to the house.
He’d felt nothing during the long, sleepless hours of the night as he considered their options and how they’d get the hell away from there. When he relaxed he’d think about Clancy. About a time when they were young, full of passion and patriotism and justice.
And how they were old now. Empty inside. And Clancy was dead.
He must have known. They all had a sixth sense about it, the good ones. And the good ones were the only ones who made it for very long. When Clancy had stashed the Vincent Black Shadow in the shed, he would have sensed that it would be James who would come for it.
He was feeling too much, and it was dangerous. If someone had been hidden in the shed, waiting for him, he’d be a dead man now as well. And God knows what they would have done to Annie.
He wouldn’t think about it. He could shut it off, neatly, surgically. Just keep moving forward, one step at a time. Get to the next stop, as fast as they could, and then deal with things.
She was holding on tightly, plastered to him. She was beginning to get that shell-shocked look around the eyes, as reality began to sink in, only to be summarily rejected. There was no way a woman like her could live with the reality of his life. Or her father’s. If she had to face it, she’d be better off dead.
At this point he didn’t plan on having her face it. He’d keep her with him, keep her safe, while he discovered his own answers. And in the end, when he knew who had been working with Win, who’d been behind the setup, and his own eventual death sentence, then he’d finish things up. And Annie would be safe.
It was the least he could offer Win. The man he’d loved like a father.
She didn’t know she had her arms wrapped tightly around an executioner. She didn’t know he’d come back to the kitchen with the stench of death all around him. She didn’t know, and she couldn’t. Or it might drive her as mad as it was slowly driving him.
“I’m sorry, sir. McKinley and the woman got away.”
“The hell you say! I sent some of our best people out there. You told me there was no way a car could have gone in or out, that the place was too isolated to walk out of.”
“Yes, sir. Apparently I miscalculated.”
“Apparently you did, son.” The General leaned back, swirling a glass of single-malt scotch in one stubby-fingered hand. It would take a hell of a lot of scotch to take the edge off this disaster, and he was a man who watched his intake carefully. Too much liquor was a sign of weakness, and the General was a man without weakness.
He stared at the yuppie slime in front of him. The new breed of bureaucrat—Ivy League—educated, politically correct, white wine—swilling faggots. He’d seen too damned many of them in the last few years, and if it was up to him he’d dump the lot in Iraq and let Hussein sort ’em out. They’d run crying home to mommy soon enough.
This one, though, was different, and the General had always known that. This one had the morals of a jackal, the brains and heart of a tiger. And no soul whatsoever. He had only to look into those empty, clever eyes and know that here was a man capable of absolutely anything.
It was a useful tool. And he was the General’s tool, there was no doubting that. But like all tools, he had to be properly taken care of. Respected like the lethal weapon he was.
“So what do you intend to do about it?” the General asked calmly enough.
“I can take care of it. I just wonder how quickly we want to finish this.”
“Damned quickly, son!” the general spat. “James McKinley has been a boil on my backside for months now, ever since he went rogue. He’s a live wire, and this organization is too damned delicate to risk it. We’ve covered our tracks as well as we can, but we’d be fools to underestimate him, no matter how erratic he’s gotten. If we want to get this up and running again, we’re going to have to eliminate him before any more time passes. Before he can tell anyone else about what’s been going on. He could get to us, son. He could bring us all tumbling down if we don’t do something about him.”
“Would you like me to handle it, sir?”
“Hell, yes, I’d like you to handle it! Haven’t I already told you so a half dozen times?”
“And if Carew starts getting suspicious?”
“Handle him too. Hell, handle all of them. We can always blame terrorists. Or blame McKinley. Do you think the Sutherland girl knows about him?”
“I doubt it. She wouldn’t have chosen to stay with him if she did, and Carew said it was definitely her choice.”
“There’s your way in, then. Drop a few key bits of information. Let her know what he does for a living, where he came from. That should scare the piss out of her.”
“How do you suggest I do that without telling her everything? About the organization, about all of us?”
The General looked at him. There shouldn’t have been any emotion, any regret in those soulless eyes, but there was. Even the best tool had its flaws, he thought absently. “If you can’t see to it, son, I have plenty of people who can. It doesn’t matter what she knows, what she guesses. She won’t have a chance to pass it on. You tell her, get her away from McKinley. We’ll take care of her, you take care of him. You do it fast. Is that clear?”
“As crystal, General.”
“Then get on with it. Find ’em. Before they find us.”
Chapter Nine
They were in the desert. She’d lost track of how long they’d been riding, or even where they’d been going. She simply closed her eyes and held on tight, with her arms around his waist, her knees tight to his thighs, letting her mind drift into some safe, quiet place where there was no blood or death. No moon rising over the barren landscape. Only bright, warming sunlight baking her back as they sped along the rough roads toward whatever destination James had in mind.
She knew they must have stopped, at least once, for a bathroom and for food, but she was only vaguely aware of it. Time blended together, and it seemed as if she’d been on the back of that sleek black motorcycle for years when the road beneath them became so rough that he had to throttle down, and she tightened her grip around him, afraid she’d be tossed off the back of the machine. And not certain he’d come back for her if she was.
He finally stopped, turning off the engine, and she had no choice but to sit back and look around her, blinking in confusion. It looked like the trailer
park from hell. There were a half dozen rundown mobile homes arranged in a haphazard fashion, surrounded by rusting automobiles and pickups. A broken toilet was set outside one of the worst-looking hovels, a mangy dog slunk through the shadows, glaring at them. The sun was already setting, and the chill that filled the air bit through Annie’s thin T-shirt.
“We’re here,” James said, climbing off the bike.
Annie still didn’t move. “Where’s here?” It looked barren, bleak, and nightmarish, and much as she wanted to stop driving, she wasn’t sure if this was where she wanted to stay.
He didn’t answer, looking around him with a lack of curiosity that Annie found particularly chilling. He knew this place, knew it well. He’d chosen to come here, for whatever twisted reasons he might have.
He glanced back at her. “Are you coming with me or not?”
“Do I have any choice?”
“I doubt you’d be able to handle the Vincent. Right now you don’t look like you could handle a tricycle. You need to get your land legs back.”
He held out a hand for her, but she’d touched him enough that day. She’d had no choice, clinging to him on the motorcycle. She had a choice now.
She swung her leg off the motorcycle and slid to the ground, sinking to the hard-packed earth as her knees buckled beneath her.
He picked her up, of course, with all the impersonal care of a forklift operator, setting her on her feet and holding her arms for a moment until she steadied herself. Then he released her, obviously as loath for physical contact as she was.
The thought startled her, and she looked up at him, confused. He seemed almost unwilling to get close to her, and she wondered why. And she wondered why it bothered her.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” he demanded irritably.
She managed a weak shrug. “Just daydreaming. Is there anyone else here?” She looked around him at the decrepit trailers.
“They keep to themselves. As we will.” He started toward the most rundown of the structures. It was rusted, the small windows so streaked with grease and filth that she doubted any light would penetrate.