by J. R. Ward
Heron was fair fucking game.
It wasn't that Jim couldn't appreciate the thoroughness, but come on. The CPD had shown up in the early afternoon, and it was now close to nine at night and the boys in blue were still hanging around.
The initial breaking-and-entering had just led to a walk-through. The real fun and games had come when they'd called the landlord--who, after he'd been informed his tenant had died well over a week ago, came at once and gave them permission to search the property in a legit way.
Funny, the old guy had still been wearing a traditional butler's uniform--and still looked like he should have been in a home instead of marching up and down stairs and offering everyone "refreshments." But he'd been very gracious, and opened up all manner of doors--except for one.
Even he hadn't been able to crack the crawl space where Eddie was kept. Then again, the spell that guarded that compartment had turned its panels into those of a bank vault.
When the cops had wrapped up their preliminary stem-to-stern, they hadn't found much. No weapons, because Jim had collected them all. No laptop because it was under his armpit. A couple of casings out in front from his playing target practice--but they already had one of those. Cigarette butts in an ashtray and some food in the fridge--big whoop.
Annnnd then it was time for round two, with the nitpicks arriving with their fingerprinting brushes and their big-ass Scotch tape, and the photographer snapping everywhere, inside and out. Finally, the yellow police tape had been run around and nailed into a tree on either side of the pea gravel. Kibitzing. Followed by a couple more exterior photographs.
Finally they were pulling out--and at least it hadn't been a total waste. Halfway through the penetration, as it were, Jim had sneaked off with the computer and his phone and made arrangements to rent another place in Caldwell.
There were advantages to having kept a couple of his homegrown aliases alive--and he and his three boys sure as shit couldn't stay here anymore.
As the last squad car took off and the CSI van pulled out, Jim put Dog down. "I thought they were never going to fucking leave."
The animal chuffed in agreement and sank into a big stretch, even though he'd hardly been traumatized: He'd slept soundly on Jim's arm, draped boneless as a waiter's cloth. Now, however, he wanted out.
Jim took a piss first, though. And texted Adrian that the coast was clear.
Opening the door to the outside stairs, he broke the nice official seal the CPD had put on things. "Oops."
Carrying Dog down to the ground floor, he let the furry little guy do his thing in his favorite stretch of bushes.
Just as the animal trotted back and Jim started walking him back up the staircase, a car came tearing along the main road at the far side of the meadow, going at a dead run and skidding onto the lane that led to the garage's front door.
Matthias was behind the wheel.
Jim could sense the imprint clear as day. And Ad was with him, as instructed--had been all along, providing a stream of text updates: apparently, the angel had trailed the guy from a meeting with Mels at a Barnes & Noble downtown to a car rental place where Matthias had gotten himself a shiny new Ford product...to outside that reporter's home, as if the guy were doing a final check-in.
Certainly appeared as though Matthias had followed through on the XOps data dump, giving over the keys to Pandora's box to his woman.
So...what the hell? If that was the crossroads--and it seemed logical it could be--at any moment the man should get subsumed into Heaven, the win complete. Instead, he was pedal to the metal, coming here?
Unless the reporter had to follow through before it counted?
No, that was her will, not his--and Matthias was the focus. What he did, his actions and choices, was the issue--Jim had learned that one in the initial round with the guy: When Matthias had pulled the trigger on that gun, with the intention of killing Isaac Rothe, that had been enough to condemn him--the fact that the kid hadn't died had not been dispositive.
Intent had been the key.
Jim put Dog inside and jogged back down the stairs, wondering what the twist was.
The driver's-side door opened before the car was in park--probably not a good sign.
Matthias jumped out and ducked under the police tape. "We were wrong."
"I'm sorry?"
"The operatives were coming for you. They think I died--I saw it in my file. And XOps doesn't waste time on the dead, unless they're reclaiming them."
Jim frowned. He'd assumed the organization believed he was taking a dirt nap as well. "They think I'm still breathing?"
"I went into the system, and it's right in your dossier--status unconfirmed."
"But you came to check on me."
Matthias frowned like he was fighting with his memory. "I did?"
Well, that explained why the XOps record read as it had.
Matthias slashed his hand through the air like the particulars were the least of their problems. "Look, the assassins only came when we were together, and that first one may have seen me, but he was dead before he could pass the intel along. Think about it--they were coming for you the whole time."
So what, Jim thought. It wasn't as if they could kill him.
And then it dawned on him. "So what are you doing here? I thought you were leaving town?"
The man looked around, searching the shadows. "I wanted to make sure you knew so you'd watch your back."
Jim shook his head slowly in disbelief. The old Matthias? This conversation never would have happened. Self-interest had been the name of the game.
"I always watch my back," Jim said softly. "You should know that."
"I guess I figure I owe you."
"That's not like you."
"Whatever, I just don't want you waking up dead one morning." The man's eyes kept roving, his vision clear, thanks to Adrian--who was hovering in the background, an invisible guard. "You saved my life a couple of years ago, and I didn't think it was a favor. Now? It gave me...a priceless few days that are worth every torture I'm going to wind up with soon enough."
"You sound so sure of that."
"You're part of this game--or whatever it is. You have to be. So you know where I've been. And as for XOps, in the next couple of days, maybe a week, everything is going to be over--you'll know when it happens. Everyone will know. If I were you, I'd go into deep hiding and stay that way."
Okay, this was all great, but where were the crossroads...?
"You came here just to tell me this?" Jim said.
"Some things you've got to do yourself. And you...matter. I can lose myself--that's fine. Hell, that's inevitable. But I'm not living with your death on my conscience. Not if I can do something to prevent it."
Jim blinked, and was surprised to find some of the perma-pressure on his chest lifted a little.
God, he hadn't expected to get emotional. Hadn't thought that was possible anymore.
Matthias took a deep breath. "And I'd stay if I could, but I can't. I've got to get moving--and besides, I know you have good backup. That roommate of yours is a hell of a fighter--"
Another car made the turn onto the lane and came flying toward the garage.
"What is this, a fucking convention," Jim muttered. Except then he sensed who it was.
Not the cops. Not an operative.
"I think your girl is here," he said to Matthias softly.
As the headlights of her mother's car hit the garage in the woods, Mels's hands tightened on the steering wheel.
Matthias was standing next to a sedan with Missouri license plates--clearly, a rental. At his side, Jim Heron loomed like a sentry.
Neither seemed particularly happy to see her, and tough shit with that.
Skidding to a halt on the far side of the police tape, she cut the engine and got out, marching up to the men.
In the tense moment before she spoke, she noticed for no good reason that the night sky was spectacular, glowing clouds streaking across the heavens, forming a
shifting patchwork over the stars and the bright moon.
"I need to talk to you," she said gruffly. "Alone."
Matthias turned to Jim and spoke quietly; then the other man stepped away. The whole time, Matthias was looking at her face as if he'd never expected to see her again, his eyes roaming, drinking her in.
Mels fought the urge to do the same. God, she still felt a pull toward him and that was not just nuts; it was suicidal.
Crossing her arms over her breasts, she kicked up her chin. "Guess you avoided the cops--and intend to keep doing so."
"I told you I was leaving." His voice was rough. "What are you doing here?"
"I read through those files. Didn't you think I'd have some questions?"
"None you'd ask of me."
"Who better to go to than the primary source."
As he met her eyes, his stare was steady and focused, like he was a man with nothing to hide. "It's self-explanatory--"
"It was your baby, wasn't it." She nodded in Heron's direction. "You ran them all--you recruited them, told them what to do, kept control of the entire organization."
"So you think I should go to jail."
"Well, yeah. Although if what I saw is true, you did the world a service." She stalled out briefly. "To be honest...I'm stunned that you gave it all to me."
"I meant what I said." He dropped his voice. "I need you to believe that what I had with you was the truth--I can't...I can't live with the idea that you think I lied about that. And as for that operative at the Marriott--he was sent to kill, and it was a case of either we took him out or he completed his mission. We had no choice."
"You and Jim Heron?"
"Yes."
"Did you take the body?"
"No, we did not--but reclamation of remains is standard operating procedure for XOps. Someone else took care of that."
"XOps is the name, huh."
"It has no name, but that's what we call it."
"Some of the men were marked with an orange strike--what does that mean?" She pointed to Jim. "Like he was."
"In those cases, there has been some intel suggesting a mortal event, but the body has not been claimed or otherwise visually confirmed."
"Jim is certainly alive and well."
"He is."
A stretch of silence followed, and Mels thought back to being against the man's body, the two of them moving together under the sheets--so close, heart-to-heart, until the whole world didn't exist, the power and combustion between them sweeping everything away.
"What can I say to help you with this," he whispered. "What can I do."
"Tell me where you're going."
"I can't."
"Or you'd have to kill me, isn't that the line."
"Never. Not you."
Cue another stall-out, and in the tense quiet, she retraced the steps she'd taken to come out here: As soon as she'd finished looking at all the files on that flashdrive, the urge to confront him had taken hold. A quick dial into her contacts at the CPD had indicated he hadn't been arrested and there were no leads on his whereabouts. In the end, she'd decided to drive out here, because Jim Heron was the only contact she had.
And now here she was, speechless.
She wanted to yell at Matthias, as if his past had been lived solely to screw her.
She wanted to rail against the whole course of their...God, it wasn't even a relationship, was it. More like a collision that had involved so much more than just her car.
She wanted to throw her arms around him...because, looking in his face, she sensed that it could be true...the things he'd given her on the SanDisk--as well as the things they'd been to each other. So much in this situation was bizarre, but the feelings...could they have been real?
"What now," she demanded hoarsely, mostly to herself.
"As in?"
"I have a feeling, even if I called the cops again right now, that you'd get away."
He inclined his head. "I would."
"So what are you going to do for the rest of your life? Run?"
"Evade death. Until it finds me and sends me to Hell. And both are going to happen."
A chill went up her spine, tingling in the nape of her neck, making her hyper-aware of everything from the pine scent in the air to the coolness of the night to those lazy, traveling clouds overhead.
Matthias seemed sad to the point of agony. "Mels, I need you to know that I didn't have a clue what to do. The amnesia was real, and when things started coming to me, I kept them from you because...that expression on your face in that hotel room this morning was something I never wanted to see--and I knew it was coming. I knew it was inevitable. The thing was, there was no good news in any of my memories--no goodness, either. But with you, I was different." He dragged a hand through his hair and touched beside his eye, running his fingertips around the faded scars. "This I can't explain. I just can't--but it wasn't makeup and contacts. And that is the God's honest. The same's true about the impotence. I didn't lie about that."
Shit. He struck her as so open, everything about him seemingly bared to her.
Except, wasn't that what good liars did? They made themselves appear to be speaking the gospel--and they had a way of figuring out what would work with whoever was in front of them, what approach, what combination of affect and vocabulary would be successful.
Good liars were so much more than fib makers. They were selfish seducers with agendas.
"I can't believe you," she said roughly.
"And I don't blame you. It is, however, the truth. My reckoning is coming for me--one way or the other the past is going to catch up with me, and I'm at peace with that. I was lucky--I got sent back to set things right, to give you what I did so you can expose the whole organization. That's the only way I can make amends, and it's also going to get you what you want--the story that can make an entire career. In the end, we'll both have what we deserve."
Funny, but her work had never seemed less important.
"You know what is still bothering me?" she said numbly. "I've never understood why I fell so hard for you--that's bothered me all along. I just can't find the reasoning, I mean, why a man I didn't know, who didn't even know himself? But you pursued me, didn't you--and you get what you want. So be honest with me now, why did you do it? Why...me."
"For the simplest reason there is."
"And that is?"
He was quiet for so long, she thought he wasn't going to answer her. Except then he said in a cracked voice, "I fell in love with you. I am a monster--it's true. But I opened my eyes in that hospital and the second I saw you...everything changed. I went after you...because I am in love."
Mels exhaled and closed her eyes, the pain in her chest taking her breath away. "Oh...God--"
"No!"
Her lids flew open as Matthias hollered, and then everything went into slow motion.
With a powerful shove from him, she went flying, her body cast aside as something whistled by her ear and pinged off the side of the garage.
A bullet.
Mels hit the pea gravel and slid along the drive. Scrambling to stop her momentum, she clawed at the loose ground cover as she rolled onto her back.
And saw everything.
Just as the moon broke free of the clouds, and silvery white light rained down on the night landscape, Matthias heaved his whole body up into the air, the trajectory putting him directly in front of Jim Heron.
Mels shouted out, but it was too late.
The illumination from the heavens spotlit him as he put his chest in the way of the second shot...that had clearly been meant for the other man.
She would never forget Matthias's face.
As he was mortally struck, his eyes were not trained on the one who was firing or the one he was saving. They were looking to the light from above, and he was...at peace.
As if his final act put him at ease all the way to his soul.
Mels reached out, as if she could stop him, or catch him, or rewind time--but the end had c
ome for him, and, God, it seemed like he had expected it.
Perhaps even welcomed it.
She screamed, the shrill sound peeling out of her throat. "Matthias...!"
His body landed in a heap, and the fact that he didn't try to brace himself against the impact was testament to how badly he was struck.
Tears sprang to her eyes as she tried to crawl over to him--
But she was held in place by invisible hands.
Ultimately, it had been the moonlight that had shown the way.
As Matthias had stood and talked with Mels, he had kept his eyes steadily on her, because it was crucial that she believe him, and he knew he wasn't getting another chance. Indeed, he had never spoken more truthful words, in spite of the fact that some of them sounded crazy, and in so many ways, his life would be complete only if by some miracle she could believe what he was saying.
And then he had had the chance to tell her he loved her. To her face.
It was more than he had hoped for or deserved.
Except as he did, the moon peeked through the clouds, throwing shadows onto the ground, shadows of trees, branches, cars...people.
Including the operative in black who had crept up to the edge of the forest.
And was lifting his gun and leveling it across the driveway.
Matthias's first move was to get Mels out of the line of fire, and as she hit the fine gravel, he heard the first shot strike the garage. The second discharge was going to be deadly--but not to her.
Jim was standing unprotected by the rental car, as obvious a target as a goddamn dartboard.
Matthias reacted in an instant, throwing himself in the way of the second shot, becoming a human shield to protect the other man. Sailing through the air, he somehow timed the jump and the trajectory perfectly.
As he felt the bullet break into his sternum and strike his heart, he thought, Well...here it was.
His final moment on earth.
And it felt right, so right. He had done such ugliness, such evil, over the course of decades, but at least he was ending on a high note, a right note--giving Jim enough time to out his gun and pick off the assassin.
Which he would do. Heron was one of the best. Always had been.
He was going to take care of business, him and that deadly roommate.
And Mels had heard the truth, even if she couldn't believe it.
In the brief, rushing weightlessness as Matthias returned to earth, his eyes went to the sky above. He was going back into the pit of Hell, so he figured he might as well enjoy the view of Heaven one last time--