Force of Nature

by Suzanne Brockmann

  Max had some papers folded up and jammed into his inside jacket pocket. He tried to flatten them on the table as he searched for the information. He found it and read off both the date and the time.

  Jules nodded.

  “Ah, fuck,” Sam breathed, as usual way too perceptive for someone who wore cowboy boots and meant it. “What was it, the same day he sent you that e-mail?”

  Yes, it was. And thanks to the Internet, by the time Jules had received that e-mail, Ben was already dead.

  He’d never seen Jules’s reply—as brief as it had been.

  Ben had taken a huge risk—and it was a career risk as well as an emotional one—by putting everything he was feeling into words, by labeling it love, and honoring and prioritizing that love above all of his other hopes and goals and dreams.

  And then he’d gone to put in a hard day’s work for an organization that wouldn’t have wanted him had they known who he really was. And he’d died because the administration thought they could win a war on the cheap.

  “What I don’t understand”—Sam was putting voice to his fury—“is why his parents didn’t get in touch with you.”

  “He wasn’t out to them,” Jules said. “They didn’t know.”

  “But he was an officer, he probably had a laptop—”

  “He did,” Jules confirmed. Ben had told Jules that he’d kept their e-mails—they’d exchanged scores of them. And Ben had said he’d saved them all. If his parents had discovered the truth—and it was hard to imagine that they hadn’t—they’d made a choice to keep it hidden, at Jules’s expense. “But that’s how it goes when you live in the closet, when your entire life’s a lie. Some of the people you love—people who love you—don’t get to come to your funeral.” He stood up. “Excuse me. I have to go throw up now.”

  He wasn’t going to make it up to his room, so he hurried for the men’s that was out in the lobby.

  “Jules.” He was stopped by a hand on his arm by…

  What was Robin still doing here? He’d never left, Jules realized. He’d stayed in the bar.

  “I couldn’t help but overhear,” he told Jules now.

  “Shit,” Jules swore, because here came Sam, making sure he wasn’t being accosted by some stranger.

  “Everything okay?” Sam drawled, his sharp gaze missing nothing, including the hand Robin quickly reclaimed.

  “This is my friend, Sam.” It was probably beyond absurd to exchange social niceties, considering he was moments from barfing on both of their shoes, but Jules didn’t quite know what else to do. Of course, once he’d introduced Sam, he realized he probably shouldn’t reveal Robin’s name in a hotel lobby, surrounded by curious onlookers, so it was even more awkward and strange.

  And then there they were, two of the most important men in his life—the ones still living, that is—gazing at each other with mutual distrust in their ridiculously similar blue eyes.

  Sam’s squint was particularly narrow. It was clear he recognized Robin, but just couldn’t place him. And God knows Robin had heard quite a bit about Sam from Jules.

  Under other circumstances, it would’ve actually been funny—like a big, giant cosmic joke on Jules—because Robin and Sam had almost the exact same coloring and build. Sam was a little taller, but other than that, they could have been brothers.

  “I just wanted to say that I’m sorry for your loss,” Robin told Jules, his face a mask. “I really am.”

  He headed for the door out of the hotel, but then turned and came back. One thing about actors—they always made excellent choices in terms of dramatic moments.

  “Apparently I don’t rate a name.” Robin leaned in close to tell Sam, both anger and hurt making his lowered voice shake. “I’m just some random Friday-night fast fuck.”

  Oh, shit. “Robin,” Jules said, but Robin was already running out the door. This time he didn’t stop.

  “Robin?” Sam repeated, heavy on the incredulity. Over the past few years, he’d heard quite a bit about Robin from Jules, and most of it included the phrase I’d have to be crazy to get involved with someone as messed up as he is. “As in Chadwick?”

  Finding that men’s room was still paramount, but now Jules had two other important bullet points on his To-Do list.

  Get a verbal ass-kicking from Sam—and Max, now, too, since he’d come out to see where Sam had gone, and had heard everything—and chase after Robin.

  Figuring out how to respond to Ben’s e-mail was a problem Jules would no longer have to worry about. The stark reality of that—the knowledge that all possibility of a relationship was gone, not by the difficult choice that he’d already made, but because Ben was gone, forever…Jules had such a sudden, sharp sense of loss, he had to sit down.

  But there was nowhere to sit. And his phone was ringing.

  He checked the caller ID, hoping it was Robin, calling back to apologize for his knee-jerk reaction to a simple misunderstanding. Despite what Max and Sam thought, despite what Ben may have thought, Jules wasn’t in a relationship with anyone.

  But it wasn’t Robin. It was Annie.

  She didn’t start with an exchange of pleasantries—she just got right into it after he answered.

  “We’ve got a problem.” She was speaking quietly, as if not wanting to be overheard. She was also talking very rapidly, and Jules had to put his finger in his other ear to hear her. “Gordie Junior is here. In Ric’s office. Ric told me to stay upstairs, and I did. I am. So far. But I looked out the window, because I heard this noise in the garden, and it’s Lillian Lavelle. She’s dyed her hair brown, but it’s definitely her. She must know that Junior’s here—she’s got her gun. I’ve been trying to call Ric on his cell, but he won’t pick up, but maybe he’ll answer if you call. Gotta go.”

  Click.

  “I’ve got trouble. Do you have a car?” Jules asked Sam and Max as he speed-dialed Ric.

  “Out front, in the lot.”

  “I need help. Are either of you carrying?” Jules asked as headed for the door. He himself was without a weapon.

  Max answered. “I’m not, but Starrett is. He’s got an entire suitcase, for Spain.”

  “It’s sealed,” the cowboy pointed out.

  “Break it open,” Jules ordered as his call went right to Ric’s voice mail. “I’ve got a situation unraveling.”

  “What’s going on?” Max asked.

  Sam sprinted ahead, both leading the way and unlocking the rental car’s trunk. He pulled out a metal suitcase, tossing it into the backseat. He threw the car keys to Max. “Don’t let vomit boy drive.”

  “I’ve got a vengeful ex–porn star,” Jules said as he got into the front seat and Max started the engine, “armed with a .44-caliber weapon, bent on murdering our prime suspect. Take a left out the driveway.”

  “You’re fucking kidding me.” Sam started laughing from the backseat, as he opened his metal case and started putting together a small arsenal of handguns.

  “It’s not funny,” Jules said sharply. “If we lose our suspect, we’ll probably lose Tango Two. Or maybe she’ll miss the suspect and kill one of my civilian team members instead. That’ll be a laugh riot.”

  Sam shut up.

  “I’ve already lost my share of friends today,” Jules told him.

  “Sorry,” Sam said as he handed Jules a Sig P226, grip first.

  “And, sweetie?” Jules said, double-checking the nicely balanced handgun even as he called Yashi for additional backup. “As far as terms of endearment go, I prefer vomit man.”

  But there was no doubt about it now—getting sick was definitely going to have to wait.

  CHAPTER

  EIGHTEEN

  Climbing down from a second-floor deck was, Annie noted, almost as hard as climbing up to one. Although it was the doing-it-silently part that really made it tough.

  The lack of stairs leading from the deck to the ground below seemed beyond stupid, but it was clearly a choice made both for privacy and security.

  Ric coul
d sleep with the sliders in his bedroom open wide, the curtains pulled back to let in the fresh night air and the moonlight, and not have to worry about waking up to the electric meter reader looking in at him, with his nose pressed against the screen.

  Assuming the meter reader had time in his busy schedule for some random Peeping Tom–age.

  Ric’s deck was built differently from the one at Burns Point. It just hung off the house, no wooden supports to shimmy down, no latticework to use as rickety finger and toeholds.

  There was only the railing—white and wooden, with top and bottom rails, and lots of decorative candlestick-like pickets filling in the space between the two. Annie tested them—none were loose. The entire thing seemed sturdy enough.

  But the upshot was that this was a hang-from-the-edge-and-drop-the-last-seven-feet kind of deal. It was pretty much pray and go—the prayer being that she didn’t break her ankle and start screaming in pain in the process.

  Lillian, meanwhile, was lurking in the oleander, by the window to the office bathroom. Someone had pulled up the blinds, probably to open the casement window a crack, and light spilled out into the yard.

  If the bathroom door had been left open, as it usually was, Lillian would be able to see right into the outer office.

  Which was where Ric, Gordie Junior, and an unknown number of his posse were discussing the logistics of a potential contract killing of the man who’d nearly let Ric’s father die.

  Ric was following up his recent performance at the police station by continuing to play the hothead. Annie had heard his voice rise heatedly a number of times since he’d opened his office door and let Junior in.

  Although, after spending the past few days with Ric, the most recent hours being intimate ones, Annie was starting to believe that the act was the easygoing guy with the laid-back attitude. The hothead was the real deal—passionate and quick to anger, quick to speak loudly, quicker still to kiss and make up.

  He was going to be beyond angry when he found out that she didn’t stay upstairs. Annie knew that what she was doing was going to be an ultimate test of his ability to forgive. But how could she just sit by and watch this impending disaster unfold?

  Lillian, after all, was as likely to hit Ric as Gordie Junior when she fired her gun.

  And Annie had waited for Jules to show up for as long as she could.

  She went over, bracing the toes of her sneakers against the sliver of the wooden deck that was on the outside of the railing. Bending her knees, she held the top rail and squatted midair, moving first one hand and then the other to two of the pickets. She walked her hands down them, getting as close as she could get to the bottom rail, until she was in a deep crouch.

  Seconds ticked by as she froze there, waiting to make sure that Lillian hadn’t heard her furtive movements.

  And waiting, too, until the voices from the office rose higher again.

  “I don’t care that he’s a cop!” she heard Ric say, his voice suddenly distinct, and Annie swung her legs down, one at a time, into the terrifying emptiness of the air.

  It was a tremendously vulnerable feeling. Her shoulders and arms screamed from holding her full body weight, and her legs were hanging where Lillian might well be able to see them, should she look away from the bathroom window.

  Annie was counting on the limitations of human vision to ensure that should Lillian hear her and glance up, she’d only see darkness after gazing for so long into the brightly lit office.

  And true, there was an outside shower, with its wooden stall between them, plus a wide variety of ferns and pony palms and other lushly growing tropical plants.

  “Where am I—?” Ric again went loud, and Annie did it. She dropped as he said “gonna get,” landing on “that kind of money?”

  She tried to imitate every cat she’d ever seen in her life, bending to break the impact on her ankles and knees and even her hips, and damned if it didn’t work. She not only landed on her feet, but she did it quietly, fading back into the deeper shadows closer to the fence, which gave her a clear view of the entire back of the house.

  Lillian, meanwhile, hadn’t moved.

  Ric was continuing to argue with Gordie Junior, haggling over the price of the hit, but from the sounds of it, Junior had delivered an ultimatum. Take it or leave it. Annie didn’t hear the words, but she was pretty certain that that was what was said.

  Because Ric replied, not as loudly, but still audible from out here, “I’m going to have to think about it. You’re going to have to give me some time, so back off, aight!”

  She could see their shadows moving through the blinds. They were in Ric’s office now, but they’d have to pass directly in front of that bathroom window—and the barrel of Lillian’s gun—when Ric showed Junior the door.

  Which was going to be soon.

  Lillian knew it, too. She brought her weapon up to the screen, ready to blow away Gordie Junior—as well as anyone who got between him and her gun.

  Annie had no choice.

  Lillian didn’t get the sudden urge to take a bite of the oleander that she was hiding in and drop dead from the plant’s toxicity.

  Ric didn’t say, “Hang on, I gotta answer my cell phone—the FBI’s calling me.”

  Jules didn’t show up, creeping through the foliage to save the day.

  It was up to the double-wide bitch.

  So Annie grabbed a cast-iron chair—it was either that or the tile-topped bistro table. The chair was plenty heavy as she rushed toward Lillian, pulling it back over her shoulder like a golfer gone mad.

  Lillian heard her—there was no way she wouldn’t have—because Annie was also shouting, “Ric! Look out! Stay away from the bathroom window!”

  Lillian turned, her face startled and pale against her oddly dyed hair, her gun pointing now at the shower stall as Annie swung. She made a sound, “Oof,” as the chair connected with her upper back, as the gun went flying, and she went down, hard, into the dirt.

  Annie scrambled after the gun, grabbing it, the grip still warm from Lillian’s clutches.

  Lillian wasn’t down for the count—that would have been too easy. She launched herself onto Annie’s back, screaming and scratching. The lights went on—big outdoor spots that blazed from the corner of the house—as Annie used the gun as if it were a heavy rock in her hand, smashing it back into Lillian’s face.

  Lillian was done then. Annie had cleaned her clock, and she lay in the dirt, unconscious, her nose a bloody mess, as Annie caught her breath.

  And looked up to find Ric and three of Gordie Junior’s heavily armed goons, standing on the deck by the back door.

  The level of alert went to magenta as Annie held up the gun she’d taken from Lillian.

  “It’s your crazy-ass ex-girlfriend,” Annie fabricated, looking at Ric, who in turn looked as if he couldn’t decide whether to let Junior’s men kill her or to do the job himself, “trying to fulfill her promise to shoot your balls off.”

  “Go upstairs,” Ric ordered Annie, holding out his hand for the .44 she’d taken from Lillian.

  She refused. Both to hand over the weapon—probably because she knew she was a better shot than he was—or to move from where she was sitting near Lillian’s crumpled and unconscious form.

  It was a miracle that she hadn’t gotten herself killed. Ric fought a wave of icy fear, trying to banish the what-if scenarios. She hadn’t broken her neck climbing down from the second-floor balcony. Lillian hadn’t shot her.

  But the danger wasn’t over yet.

  Junior had hung back as Ric had opened the back door, but he’d heard Annie’s explanation. Crazy-ass ex. It would work—as long as Junior didn’t get close enough to recognize Lillian, whom he knew intimately, considering she’d starred in one of his so-called adult movies. Then again, he hadn’t recognized her in her Palm Gardens raincoat disguise, either. Maybe he only recognized her when she was naked.

  Junior came forward now, and Annie shifted, making sure that Lillian’s face was in h
er shadow. She met Ric’s eyes, and he knew without a doubt that they were both on the same page regarding hiding Lillian’s identity.

  “Get your cuffs,” Annie told Ric. “I’ll cuff her.” She now held out the gun for him, and he took it.

  But no way was he leaving her alone out here with Gordie Junior and his men—not even for thirty seconds.

  “Dayam, that’s some serious hardware.” Junior was referring to Lillian’s gun. “She was looking to put you six feet under, bro.”

  Annie meanwhile had flipped Lillian onto her stomach. “Eat dirt, bitch,” she said, taking a handful of the mixture of sand and darker mulch and rubbing it into Lillian’s face. “Get those cuffs,” she told Ric again.

  “What do you want with cuffs?” Junior asked. “I had a pain in the ass like this, I’d just pop her now.”

  Annie looked up from straightening Lillian’s legs and pulling her hands so that they were at the small of her back. Ric saw that she had a new scratch on her own arm—the same one with the trashed elbow and variety of other scrapes.

  “Can’t,” Ric said, wondering what other contusions and bruises Annie had collected from tonight’s unending fiasco. God damn, but they should’ve both still been in his bed, right now. “She came by a few days ago, shot out the front window of the office, shot up our cars. The neighbors are skittish. They hear a gunshot, the police’ll be on my ass so fast…” He shook his head, trying to arrange his face into an expression of regret. Too bad. He couldn’t murder an unconscious woman in cold blood. Not tonight.

  But Gordie Junior had another idea. “Why’n’cha give her to me? I’ll make her disappear.” He leaned closer to Ric, as if he were sharing a secret, but he didn’t bother to lower his voice. “Snuff films are a growing market. It’s good for the current girlfriend to hear that, too, huh? It’ll keep her in line.” He laughed, nudging Ric. “Look at her face, she thinks I’m serious.”

  Okay, so that was supposed to be a joke. Sociopathic humor. Ric forced a laugh, not daring to meet Annie’s eyes.

  “Seriously, though,” Junior then said. “I can take care of her for you. No charge.”