by Jenna Black
I’d ridden in a car Jack was driving once, and I had no desire to repeat the experience. Besides, my bag was in the trunk of my car, and I intended to drive myself. I knew Jamaal wouldn’t want to get into the Mini, so that meant we’d have to take two cars—which was perfect, because I didn’t want to leave Jamaal and Jack stranded when I made my getaway from the cemetery.
“I’m never getting in a car you’re driving again,” I said. “At least, not without a blindfold and Valium.”
“That can be arranged,” Jack answered, undaunted. “Jamaal’s stoned, and you’re going to need all your concentration for the hunt.”
“I am not stoned,” Jamaal gritted out. “Stop being such an asshole.”
“I’m driving,” I declared. I unlocked the Mini and reached for the door. “If you have a problem with that,” I said over my shoulder to Jamaal, “then you can drive your own car, and we can do rock, paper, scissors to figure out who gets stuck with Jack.”
To my surprise, Jamaal opened the passenger door like he was fine with the idea of riding with me. It meant I was going to have to strand them at the cemetery after all, but I wasn’t going to renege now that I’d already offered.
Jamaal started folding the seat forward to let Jack into the backseat, then paused with a thoughtful look on his face.
“We shouldn’t take the chance that Kerner might see Jack riding around in the backseat while we’re looking for a place to park. We should have our cover all ready to go by the time we get there.” He turned and looked at Jack, his expression almost gleeful. “You should ride in the trunk and be in your Konstantin disguise by the time we open it to get you out.”
Crap. This was not a contingency I’d planned for. I didn’t want the guys to know I was planning to bolt. Maybe they wouldn’t try to stop me—I doubted Jack cared one way or another, and with the dangerous undercurrents that ran between us, Jamaal might be just as happy to see me go. But even if they didn’t try to stop me, I knew they wouldn’t let me go quietly and without fuss.
“You won’t give me a hit, and you’re going to make me ride in the trunk?” Jack said. “Man, you two are cold.”
Jamaal surprised me by holding the joint out to Jack, which made Jack laugh.
“No, thanks,” he said. “Never touch the stuff.”
Jamaal took one last drag, then stubbed out the half-smoked joint and put it away. He blew his smoke directly into Jack’s face. Jack laughed again but not until after he stopped coughing.
“My trunk is too small for Jack to ride in,” I said, trying to sound casual. “Maybe you guys should take the Saab, and I can meet you there.”
Jack’s form shimmered, and seconds later, there was a fluffy white miniature poodle, complete with a pink bow and painted toenails, sitting where he had been. The poodle made an impossibly long leap and landed on the passenger seat, then put its paws on the dashboard and panted eagerly, tail wagging furiously, looking for all the world like a real dog excited for a car ride.
Jamaal rolled his eyes. “Size isn’t an issue,” he informed me unnecessarily as he grabbed the poodle by the scruff of its neck and lifted it off the seat. He held the poodle up to his face and glared at it. “This is not a laughing matter, so quit with the hilarity.”
The poodle nodded solemnly, then flicked out its long, almost froglike pink tongue and licked Jamaal’s face. Jamaal made a choking sound and tossed the poodle away from him hard enough to make me wince in sympathy. Jack resumed his human form before he slammed into the wall of the garage. He let out a soft “oof” and slid to the floor on his butt, but it didn’t seem to put a damper on his sense of humor.
“You should have seen your face!” he said, laughing at Jamaal as he picked himself up off the floor. “Priceless! If only I’d had a camera.”
“Whose idea was it to bring Jack?” Jamaal asked me with a look of chagrin. He wiped at his face where Jack had licked him but showed no sign that he might be losing control of his temper. Which was pretty impressive, considering I might have lost my temper in his shoes.
“Yours,” I reminded him, then smiled, realizing he’d just made something approximating a joke.
He scowled but with less ferocity than usual. “Pop the trunk.”
And here I’d been hoping Jack’s prank might miraculously make Jamaal forget about his brilliant idea for deception. I tried to think of a good excuse not to put Jack in the trunk, but I came up empty. Either I had to let the guys see that I was ready to bolt, or I would have to change my mind about taking my own car. The latter meant I’d have to come back to the mansion later, and I didn’t think that was a good idea.
While I was still hemming and hawing, looking for a third option, my trunk popped open of its own volition. I leapt out of the car with a startled gasp and saw Jack peering curiously into the trunk.
“How did you …?” I let the words trail off as I realized my car keys were no longer in my hand. I tried to remember what I’d done with them after I’d opened the locks, but I couldn’t recall. Not that it mattered—one way or another, Jack had relieved me of them and opened the trunk.
“What’s all this?” Jack inquired, blinking at me innocently.
Jamaal peeked over Jack’s shoulder and made a low growling sound. So much for my clandestine getaway. I fought the urge to hang my head. I hadn’t done anything wrong.
“Emma’s going to take this as a formal declaration of war when she finds out,” I explained. “I can’t be around when that happens. If she were just going to come after me, that would be one thing, but she’s threatened Steph.”
Jamaal’s face was hard and cold. “And you think the rest of us are just going to sit idly by and let Emma hurt your sister?”
“What are you going to do to stop her?” I asked, shaking my head in exasperation. “Are you going to put her under twenty-four-hour surveillance? Lock her in the basement? Besides, I’m getting you two into enough trouble with Anderson as it is. I’ve got enough crap eating away at my conscience already. It’s better for everyone if I just get out of here as soon as this is all over.”
Jack shrugged like it didn’t matter to him one way or another—which it probably didn’t. “Suit yourself,” he said, then reached into the trunk and pulled out my suitcase, lugging it to the backseat and shoving it in. “We’ll call Anderson to come pick us up—and help us get Kerner permanently contained—after you’ve blown his brains out and taken off.”
Jamaal just stood there looking at me reproachfully. The needy little girl in me wanted him to argue with me, wanted him to show some evidence that he wanted me to stay. Even if that evidence was him yelling at me for being a coward. But all I was getting from him, apparently, was the evil eye. And that wasn’t anywhere near enough to persuade me.
Since no one seemed inclined to say anything more, I got back into the car and fussed with the rearview mirror, though its angle was just fine. The trunk slammed shut, presumably with Jack inside, and Jamaal slid the passenger seat as far back as he could get it before climbing inside. He didn’t look at me, and I couldn’t read the expression on his face. Which was probably just as well.
Blowing out a breath and telling myself I’d worry about my future later, after I’d survived the night’s mission, I started the car and headed out.
The Hebrew Cemetery was the closest of the likely candidates for Kerner’s home base, so I drove there first. Neither Jamaal nor I spoke for the entire ride. It wasn’t a companionable silence. I’d have broken it if I could have thought of something to say.
The moon was conveniently high in the sky, and there was nothing more than the occasional wispy cloud to block its light. The perfect night for a hunt. As I neared the cemetery, I tried to listen to my instincts and get a feel for whether Kerner was there or not, but I felt nothing. No surge of excitement, no quickening of my heartbeat, no conviction that this was the place. I drove around the block, circling the cemetery, just to be sure, but there was nothing. Either Kerner wasn’t here, or my
powers weren’t going to lead me to him.
Jamaal still hadn’t spoken to me, and he made no comment when I veered away from the Hebrew Cemetery and started wending my way toward our next destination, a pair of cemeteries to the northwest. I suppose he figured out that my radar hadn’t picked up anything without having to ask me about it.
The silence had taken on a life of its own, and I squirmed with discomfort. I wished I knew what Jamaal was thinking.
Did he think I was a coward for running? Was he pissed off at me for trying to sneak away without telling him good-bye? Was he regretting the fact that we could no longer explore whatever it was that was going on between us? Or was he glad I would finally be out of his life because of all the ways I’d screwed him up?
I mentally growled at myself to keep my head in the game. What Jamaal was feeling, what I was feeling, was irrelevant at the moment. All that mattered was finding and catching Kerner. When that was over, I could wallow to my heart’s content.
Jamaal cleared his throat, and I jumped, realizing I’d spaced out a bit while getting a head start on the wallowing. I looked around, disoriented and not sure where I was.
“Is there a reason you turned onto Suitland?” Jamaal asked.
I glanced at the street sign as I came to a stop at an intersection. Sure enough, I had somehow ended up on Suitland Road when I was supposed to be on Alabama Avenue. There was no traffic, so I could easily make a U-turn, but I felt a strange reluctance to do it.
I started the car rolling forward into the intersection and was about halfway into the U-turn when it occurred to me I might have made that wrong turn for a reason. I mentally pictured my map of D.C. and its environs, with all of the cemeteries marked with little stickers.
Just across the D.C. limits into Maryland, there was a cluster of three cemeteries, and Suitland Road led directly to those cemeteries. I didn’t think it was a coincidence that I’d turned down Suitland while I was spaced out.
I made my U-turn into a clumsy circle and kept going down Suitland. It felt right.
“I think Kerner is in one of the cemeteries on the other side of the D.C. border,” I told Jamaal when he gave me a strange look. He nodded but didn’t say anything, still giving me the silent treatment.
I drove until the cemeteries came into view, then found a conveniently dark parking space off one of the side streets. We might not want Kerner to see Jack riding around in the backseat, but we also didn’t want civilians seeing us dragging our Konstantin lookalike from the trunk of the car. The pool of shadow formed by a burned-out streetlight was perfect for our purposes.
I looked at Jamaal and swallowed hard as my palms began to sweat with nerves.
“I guess this is it,” I said, and I hoped I didn’t sound as scared as I was. It was one thing to plan a confrontation with Kerner and his jackals from the safety of the mansion, quite another to actually walk out into a darkened cemetery as bait for a crazed serial killer.
Jamaal nodded sharply at me without making eye contact. “Let’s do it,” he said, and stepped out of the car.
I took a deep breath for courage, then popped the trunk and stepped out onto the sidewalk.
Despite knowing what to expect, I still did a double take when I looked in the trunk and saw Konstantin’s body wedged in there. Jack had apparently decided Konstantin would have needed a lot of subduing, because his disguise included an impressive array of swollen, angry-looking bruises, as well as handcuffs, rope, and even some duct tape. Not only that, but he lay still in the trunk with his eyes closed, as if unconscious. Or dead.
I looked at Jack’s disguise more closely and saw what looked like a bullet wound in the middle of his chest.
“Jeez,” I muttered, “isn’t this a bit of overkill?”
“Konstantin is a war god descendant,” Jamaal reminded me, his voice just as low as mine. “It would take a lot to subdue him.”
Jamaal checked up and down the street, looking for potential witnesses, but there was no one around. Then he leaned down and hefted Jack out of the trunk, throwing the supposedly unconscious/dead man over his shoulder. I noticed Jack had left a large bloodstain on the trunk’s upholstery from his phony bullet wound.
“That blood better not be there when we come back,” I said, and though he didn’t move, I could swear I heard a little snort of amusement from Jack.
I slammed the trunk closed, then checked to make sure my gun was easily accessible. I’d stashed it in my coat pocket, not having a holster for it. A situation I should probably remedy if I was going to be trotting around D.C. carrying a concealed firearm on a regular basis.
Of course, I wouldn’t be doing that, I reminded myself, because I was leaving as soon as we’d accomplished our mission.
The fence around the cemetery was purely ornamental, so low we could step right over it. I managed to trip anyway and almost went sprawling on the grass. My cheeks heated with embarrassment—not the most auspicious start ever—and I stared straight ahead so I didn’t have to see Jack laughing at me.
“Which way?” Jamaal asked.
I didn’t feel sure of anything, but I felt slightly more inclined to go to my right than my left, so I went with it. Jamaal, with Jack still draped limply over his shoulder, followed me as we wove our way through the headstones. The light of the moon was just enough to keep us from tripping and stumbling over the various obstacles.
We made it all the way to the fence on the opposite side of the cemetery without any sign of Kerner, and my senses were blurred and confused from thinking too hard. Probably the only reason I’d managed to bring us to this cemetery in the first place was that I’d distracted myself enough with my brooding that my body was able to follow subconscious signals.
Spacing out involuntarily is pretty easy, especially when you’re stressed and sleep-deprived. Doing it on purpose, however, proved to be impossible. I tried to let my conscious mind drift, but I was too aware of the creepiness of walking through a cemetery at night and of the fear of facing Kerner and his jackals again.
I picked a direction at random and started walking again, reminding myself that our plan was for Kerner to find us, not the other way around. For all I knew, he was watching us right now, trying to figure out what we were up to.
“Kerner?” I called into the night. My voice was too soft to carry—it’s hard to get yourself to shout in a cemetery—so I tried again. “Justin Kerner. We’ve brought you a present.”
I waved my hand at Jamaal and his fake Konstantin. If Kerner could hear me, he wasn’t answering.
“I guess we keep walking,” I decided, and Jamaal fell into step beside me.
Our haphazard path took us all the way to the fence once again, and I had a sinking feeling that Kerner wasn’t going to bite. Either he knew this was a trick, or he had more self-control than we’d thought and wasn’t willing to give up his slow revenge for the quick kill.
Jamaal and I turned around, preparing to plunge back into the heart of the cemetery, but we both came to an abrupt halt when we saw that we were not alone. A figure stood in the shadow of a tree, his features hidden by darkness.
I started to draw my gun, but when the figure stepped forward out of the shadow, the moonlight revealed that it wasn’t Justin Kerner.
It was Anderson.
And boy, did he ever look pissed.
TWENTY-ONE
What the hell was Anderson doing here? I was certain no one had seen us leave the house, and even if I’d been wrong about that, surely I would have noticed if someone had been following us the whole way. I wondered for a moment if Kerner was a shape-shifter of some sort—like Jack—and could make himself look like Anderson, but I quickly dismissed the idea. He wouldn’t know Anderson well enough to match that uniquely pissed-off body language.
Jamaal slung Jack’s body off his shoulder. He probably expected Jack to shift back into his real form and join us to face the music, but Jack just allowed himself to fall limply to the grass, still in his Konstantin di
sguise.
Anderson stalked to within a few feet of us, his eyes fixed on me the whole time like he knew this was all my idea. I had to fight the urge to hang my head in shame. I was only doing what I had to do to catch Kerner—without putting myself or my sister in Emma’s sights. There was nothing to be ashamed of in that.
“How did you find us?” I asked when the pressure of silence became too much.
“I got a phone call from your accomplice,” Anderson grated, “saying you were going to kidnap Konstantin and try to hand him over to Kerner. Without having discussed your Lone Ranger plan with me or the rest of the team.”
Confusion struck me speechless, and I shared a puzzled look with Jamaal. If someone had told Anderson what we were up to, then he’d know we hadn’t really kidnapped Konstantin.
Anderson glared down at our faux Konstantin, and I suddenly understood. He might be so angry he was thinking of whipping out his Hand of Doom, but Anderson wasn’t going to blow our cover story just in case it was working and Kerner was nearby.
“Jack called you,” I said in a flat voice, careful not to look at Jack as I spoke and give anything away. Obviously, putting him in the trunk where we couldn’t see him had been a bad idea. “Why would he do a thing like that?”
“Perhaps because he thought you two are acting like idiots,” Anderson snapped. He turned his glare to Jamaal. “I can understand why Nikki would do this under the circumstances, but what’s your excuse?”
If I didn’t know what I knew about Anderson, I would have found it almost comical to see a big, intimidating guy like Jamaal shrink from the rage of a much smaller, unprepossessing man. I don’t think Jamaal was afraid of Anderson, per se, but he definitely held him in considerable respect.
“Maybe this isn’t the right time or place to talk about it,” Jamaal suggested.
I couldn’t have agreed with him more. As angry as Anderson was right now, he was at least keeping his cool enough to maintain our cover. I didn’t know exactly what Jack had told him, but I suspected hearing the details would send his temper into overdrive.