by Tami Lund
She braced herself, used thoughts of Jack to keep herself focused. The way he’d hit on her at Sabrina and Cullen’s wedding. How comfortable he’d appeared when he’d met her parents. How he’d disengaged himself when her brother’s girlfriend had wrapped herself around him like a bad mink coat.
The way he teased her, flirted with her, made bawdy comments that nonetheless turned her on. His kisses. The feel of those lips nibbling on her ear, trailing wet kisses along her throat, down to her breasts … Okay, maybe she shouldn’t think quite so much about Jack. She was fast losing that focus she needed because her captor appeared ready to try to leave the motel room.
The woman stuck her head out of the open motel room door, her eyes scanning the parking lot, presumably for anyone who might question the fact that she was with a gagged and bound person. As the woman pulled her head back in the door, Kennedy took her chance. She used the full force of her body to give the old lady a shove. Taken off guard by the move, her abductor gave a shout and tumbled to the sidewalk, releasing Kennedy in her bid to break her fall. Kennedy teetered, but luck was on her side, and she managed to keep her feet. If she’d fallen, she would have been a goner. With her hands tied behind her back, there was no way she could have regained her footing and gotten away from her captor.
Kennedy ran. Her Crocs squished as she splashed through puddles. The rain plastered her hair to her head and dripped into her eyes, and she had no way to wipe it away. She struggled to breathe with the gag in place. And still she ran. Adrenaline and fear were a powerful combination.
She sprinted across the parking lot and ran toward the nearest street. Pools of light from street lamps and the glowing neon of business signs broke the darkness. There were no cars, and nothing appeared to be open. Even the nearest diner looked as if it was closed up for the night.
No wonder people kidnapped other people in the middle of the night. She had no idea where she was. Nothing looked familiar. And damn it, where was a random vehicle when you needed one? Or better yet, a patrolling police car?
She heard footsteps pounding behind her, and she tried to increase her pace. How the hell was the woman running so fast? Fear sizzled through Kennedy’s system as she realized the pursuer was gaining on her, and fast. Without the ability to use her arms or take a deep breath, she simply could not run any faster. She looked around for a means of escape and found nothing, nothing at all.
And then she was tackled from behind. The impact sent her to her knees, a deep puddle lessening the impact as they connected with the sidewalk, before she fell face first into the muddy water.
Somebody grabbed her from behind and turned her over, which was a relief, since she’d been sucking water up her nose. She struggled to breathe with the gag still firmly secured over her mouth. It was a losing battle. She couldn’t get enough air. It was as if she were drowning, even though she wasn’t still in the water.
“Jesus, Kennedy. You look like you’re about to pass out.”
Hands fumbled with the gag, and then, blessedly, it was loosened and pulled from her mouth. She sucked in air, sputtering and coughing as she did so, but still grateful that she was finally able to take in great, gulping breaths.
When she was certain she was not about to drown anymore, she looked up at her savior.
“Jerry?”
Her head whipped from side to side as she searched the darkness for the old woman who she had been certain was chasing her. “Oh my God, Jerry! What are you doing here? Oh thank God. Untie me, quick. There’s a crazy woman after me. I just escaped from her and … and …” She stuttered to a stop. “What?” she asked at the odd look on his face.
“I know exactly who you were running from,” he said. He sounded oddly pleased with himself. “Her name is Marie Maloney. Personally, I’m impressed you were able to get away. I had no idea you were so resourceful, Kennedy.”
She gave him a suspicious look. “How do you know my captor’s name?”
Jerry sat back on his heels and grinned. “Why, because I helped her, that’s how.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“How the hell did he escape?” Jack was all but shouting into his phone, and Cullen prodded him with his elbow to warn him to quiet it down. “You’re an incompetent ass, Rich,” he snarled, and then he disconnected.
“Jerry,” Cullen guessed.
“I’m writing Rich’s ass up when we get back to the office. What a fucking moron. What the hell kind of FBI agent lets a wimp like Coster not only escape, but take his goddamned gun too?”
“We have the necklace, and we know where Maloney and Kennedy are located. We’ll track Jerry down later. It’ll be easy. Just check all the local casinos. In the meantime, let’s focus on saving your woman.”
He hoped to hell he had a chance to call her that when this was over. He had a feeling she would find it amusing.
They found the motel from where Terrance figured out the cell signal was coming. They talked to the clerk on duty at the front desk, showing him several pictures of Marie Maloney, her hair different in each one, to allow for the variety of wigs they now knew she possessed. He pointed out the picture of Marie in a dark, curly wig.
“Yeah, that lady’s here. Checked into room five-twelve. Why? She do something wrong? She’s a nice old lady,” the clerk added.
He was probably in his twenties, a scrawny guy whose eyes strayed to his phone approximately every five seconds during the brief conversation. Cullen finally snatched the phone and turned it off, but not before Jack saw the screen and deduced that the clerk had been having a very X-rated text conversation with a girl named Veronica. No wonder he hadn’t been able to keep his eyes off the phone.
Nice old lady. What would this kid think if he pointed out that the nice old lady had likely killed at least a dozen people in her lifetime?
“She lost something,” he said smoothly instead. “We need to give it back to her.”
“Damn. Must be pretty important if it takes the feds to get it back to her.”
“Real important,” he assured the clerk, flashing a grin. “Now, can I have a master key?”
Even low-rent places that were barely on the map had enough technology to use key cards instead of regular keys these days, Jack thought as the kid punched a few keys on his computer keyboard, and then held a plastic card next to a machine on the counter. The machine sucked the card in, and a moment later, spit it back out again.
“Here you go.” He slid the key across the counter. “You need me to do anything? Call her and let her know you’re coming?”
“That’s the last thing we want you to do,” Cullen growled, and the poor kid shrank back into himself. With a disgusted look on his face, Cullen pushed the phone across the counter. “Get back to your sexting and stay out of this,” he snapped. Jack was already at the door.
They found room five-twelve, and both men crouched in the shadows of a stairwell, across the parking lot from the room. An SUV was backed up to the curb directly in front of the door. A light was on in the motel room, but so far there was no sign of activity.
“Shouldn’t she be leaving if she’s planning to meet us?” he whispered. “The designated meeting time is less than ten minutes from now.”
“Check out eleven o’clock,” Cullen hissed as he leaned deeper into the shadows.
Jack turned his head slightly to the left and watched a lone figure huddled in a silver rain slicker walk around the side of the building and head down the sidewalk in front of the motel. The figure paused and pulled out a key card, opened the door, and stepped into room five-twelve. Jack and Cullen both let out a collective breath when the door closed again.
“Did you see anything?” Cullen asked.
“Nothing. What do you think she was doing? Scoping out the area, to make sure no one was watching?”
“Maybe. We have to assume Kennedy’s inside that room.”
“Let’s get closer,” Jack suggested. “Maloney should be leaving any minute now. With luck, she’ll leav
e Kennedy here. Otherwise, we take our perp down while she’s trying to transfer Kennedy into the vehicle.”
Before they could step out of the shadows, however, Marie exited the room again and hurried to the SUV. She climbed into the driver’s seat, cranked the engine, and slammed on the gas, tearing out of the parking lot.
“Call it in,” Jack commanded as he skirted around the building and headed toward the motel room she’d just vacated. “Get a tail on her, but tell them not to move in until we verify Kennedy’s in this room. Fuck,” he added quietly. “Please still be alive, baby.” Fear spurred him to move faster, and then he gave up all pretense and sprinted across the wet parking lot.
Empty.
Out of shear frustration, he kicked at the chair that still had ropes tied to the legs, indicating someone—probably Kennedy—had been seated there recently, clearly against her will. The chair slammed against the nearest wall, splintering and crumbling to the floor in a broken heap.
Cullen had his phone to his ear the entire time. “We still have her,” he relayed to Jack, who was busy canvassing the motel room for clues as to Kennedy’s whereabouts. At least there wasn’t any blood. That said something—he hoped.
“Oh shit,” Cullen swore, and Jack whipped his head around to stare intently at his partner. “We have a situation,” he said grimly.
Jack didn’t say a word. He simply waited.
“There’s a standoff. Just about a mile from here.” His face grew grimmer yet. “It’s Jerry. He has Kennedy. And he’s offering to trade her for money he says the Maloney woman owes him.”
• • •
Kennedy stood near a gas station that was closed for the night, but the overhead lights still illuminated the scene, making it easy for her to see that Jerry was quite literally quaking in his running shoes.
“If you’re so scared, why don’t you just run away?” she suggested.
“I’m not scared,” Jerry snapped. “Not of some old woman.”
Kennedy snorted.
“Okay, maybe a little. She’s killed a lot of people; did you know that? And the feds think she’s batshit crazy. So yeah, maybe I am a little scared of her. But not nearly as scared as I am of the people I owe a lot of money to.”
Kennedy shook her head. After growing irritated with her for being almost completely helpless, he pulled a gun from under his rain slicker and waved it under her nose before he finally untied her arms.
“Where did you get a gun?”
“From the stupid FBI agent who made the mistake of turning his back on me,” he sneered.
“Jack? Cullen?”
Jerry looked aghast at that suggestion. “Hell no. Those two scare the crap out of me. I’d never try to take a gun from either one of them, even if his back were turned.”
“And here I was convinced you quite literally did not have a brain.”
Jerry smirked. “You aren’t funny. And if you keep it up, I just might use this gun.”
She had little doubt he would use it. He probably wouldn’t kill her—whatever else he was, she did not think he had it in him to murder someone—but he might shoot her in the leg or arm, and she needed all her limbs if she intended to survive this situation.
She didn’t bother to scream for help, either. They were in a retail business district located just off the almost-completely deserted freeway. At this time of night, there wasn’t another person around, probably for miles. They were most definitely not in the city.
“You haven’t changed at all, have you?” she asked. “You’re still addicted. You’re still letting the habit control you.”
“No I’m not,” he insisted. “I spent a little too much last time, that’s all. I just need to pay off this guy I borrowed some money from, and then I’ll be good. I can start over. My luck’s going to change, you’ll see.”
“Your luck is never going to change. You need help, Jerry.”
“You always were so damn high and mighty about my pastime,” he sneered. “Probably because you don’t have any pastimes. All you do is work, all the damn time. Don’t you get sick of it? Don’t you just want to cut loose sometimes?”
She’d cut loose plenty of times with Jack over the course of the last week and a half, and that one time in the limo at Cullen and Sabrina’s wedding. She’d relaxed with him, too, just hanging out at the house, enjoying a mutual day off together, doing nothing of significant consequence. Which had been perfect, at least to her.
“I think our versions of cutting loose are very different.”
He abruptly changed the subject. “Why’d you tell everyone I cheated on you?”
She turned away from his inquiring gaze. Even though it was Jerry—the very reason for her lie—Kennedy still hated that someone had figured it out.
“Seriously. You didn’t really think I did, did you? You had to know I would never cheat on you, Kennedy.”
“You wouldn’t cheat on me, but it was okay to steal from me?”
“I didn’t steal from you. We were married. Community property and all that.”
“That’s bullshit, and you know it, Jerry.”
“I was going to pay you back. I just needed to pay off this guy I borrowed money from when I lost at the tables.”
“It’s been three years. I haven’t seen a dime. And now you’re going to hand me over to a killer to pay off yet another gambling debt. You never learn. You’re a worthless human being, Jerry. I was such an idiot to fall for your song and dance, to not see it when you started having problems. You want to know why I told everyone you cheated? Because cheating is something people recognize and accept that the other party never realized was happening. But a gambling addiction? You stealing everything I ever had of value? I couldn’t live with the shame. It was easier to pretend you were an asshole, cheating husband than a loser, gambling addict.”
“Damn, you sure have become heartless and cruel,” he replied, completely nonplussed.
Jerry didn’t get it. And he never would. Because he was such a clueless idiot, Kennedy was probably going to die. The thought was infuriating, and she was about to lash out again, give him a serious piece of her mind, when he shushed her.
He jerked on her arm, pulling her around the side of a nearby dumpster. “There she is,” he whispered.
Dual lights flashed across the parking lot as an SUV pulled off the road and began rolling toward them very slowly. The vehicle stopped with the lights trained on their hiding place.
“Turn off the lights!” Jerry called,
The person in the SUV must have had the window rolled down, because a moment later, the lights went dark.
“I have the necklace,” Jerry shouted. “And I have Shannon. If you want them, you need to give me my money!”
Kennedy leaned out from behind the dumpster and watched as her captor—Marie, Jerry said was her name—slowly climbed out of the SUV. She held a bulky, five-by-seven inch manila envelope in one hand, and she wore the silver rain slicker, which Kennedy was certain still had a knife tucked into the pocket. Jerry, however, had a gun, which in the real world trumped the knife unless he made the mistake of letting the wielder get too close.
Marie took a few tentative steps away from the SUV. It rumbled quietly behind her. She had not turned off the engine, which meant she intended to make a fast getaway.
“Jerry,” Kennedy hissed. “Don’t do this. She’ll kill us both.”
“Shut the hell up or I’ll put the gag back on,” he snapped in a harsh whisper. More loudly, he called out, “Throw it down on the ground.”
He grabbed her arm and stepped into view, dragging her along with him. She gave a cry when he tugged on her aching shoulder.
“As far as you can toss it,” he added.
Marie did as he asked, and then stood there, not moving, as Jerry inched closer to the envelope with Kennedy trailing behind him. He snatched up the sopping-wet package and started to straighten just as someone shouted, “Freeze!”
“Son of a bitch,” she hear
d someone growl from off to her left, near the gas station building. She recognized that voice. She knew without a doubt that it was Jack.
He was here!
After that, everything happened at the same time.
“My necklace!” Marie screeched and lunged at Jerry and Kennedy, the long, thin knife in her hand.
Jerry dropped the gun and ran, leaving Kennedy standing in the line of attack. She heard someone shout, “No!” as Marie came at her with the knife held high.
But she did not slash it down at Kennedy. She pulled back at the last minute and grabbed Kennedy instead, patting her body, looking for something.
“Where is it?” she demanded.
She must be talking about the necklace. “I don’t know,” she said.
“Where is it?” Marie cried out, asking the parking lot in general.
“I have it,” Jack said, and suddenly he stepped out of the shadows and into a pool of yellow light cast by a nearby lamppost. His blond hair was plastered to his forehead, his dark blue, FBI rain slicker was soaked through, and the look in his eyes was intense. He lifted his arm in the air, and Kennedy could just make out the thin chain dangling from his fingers.
“Shannon’s necklace,” Marie breathed, her eyes glued to the object. Her reverence lasted barely a moment, however, before she grabbed Kennedy and whirled her around to face Jack. Marie wrapped one arm around Kennedy’s chest and held the knife in front of her. Kennedy saw the fear skitter across Jack’s face. Was it fear for her safety as an innocent victim—just as he would fear for any stranger who happened to be in the same situation—or because he cared?
“Let her go, Marie,” Jack said, his voice shaking just a little. “She has nothing to do with this. This is between you and me.”
“She has everything to do with this,” Marie shouted as she gave her a shake. “She’s a married woman whoring herself out to a stripper!”
Jack shook his head. “You know I’m not a stripper, Marie. I’m FBI. I was undercover, trying to figure out who was killing the other strippers.”
“You figured it out?”