by Alicia Scott
Ben kept himself steady. “Deep breaths,” he ordered calmly. “Deep breaths.”
After a moment, Betty nodded. He saw her relax a fraction and he smiled his encouragement. Even after all these years, he felt his love for her knot his chest.
“We’re gonna be all right,” he promised solemnly. “We’re gonna be all right.”
In front of them, the strange woman with her beautiful features and cold, cold eyes kept pacing.
* * *
Josie had a helluva time flagging down a cab. Then she worried she would run out of money before arriving at Ben and Betty Stryker’s street. They lived in a secluded, wooded area where house lots were measured in acres and things like streetlights and sidewalks were frowned upon. Finally, she thrust a wad of bills into the taxi driver’s hand, fell out of the back seat and realized she’d arrived with no clear plan. She didn’t have a gun, she didn’t have training in negotiating for the release of hostages from psychopathic assassins. She didn’t dare call the cops or the situation could deteriorate even worse.
Oh, God, she was the cavalry and she didn’t even know how to ride a horse.
Distraction, she thought at last. She needed to create a diversion, something to get the hit woman out of Ben and Betty’s house. When she was little, her father had taught her how to play any role from that of a little boy to a sick little girl. She knew how to be a salesman or a preacher or a pool shark. And she couldn’t quite think how any of that would help her now, particularly as the hit woman would recognize her instantly if she approached the house.
She needed something better.
Josie’s gaze fell on a woodpile behind the Strykers’ house. Then she glanced at the big metal trash barrels. Finally, her gaze swept to the rooftop of the nearest neighboring house.
She set off at a dead run and arrived at the neighboring doorstep with a gasp.
“Fire!” She cried at the top of her lungs, pounding on the door. “Fire at the Strykers’ place!”
“Oh, my God,” the man gasped. He was already picking up the phone and dialing 911.
Josie leapt off his porch and was already running again. Okay. The fire department was on its way. Now, she just needed a fire.
* * *
In the murky darkness of the kitchen, Jack read the note. He did not swear, he did not yell, he did not pray. He turned, his expression set in stone, and he walked out of the house to Jessica’s car.
Five seconds later, he was peeling down the street and flooring it to his parents’ house.
“Josie, you fool!”
* * *
“I…I smell smoke.” Betty’s voice cracked the silence unnaturally high, making all of them flinch. “I do. I really do.”
Ben was already groaning, trying desperately to reach out but unable to. He fought the ropes in a moment of panic, seeing the woman turn around with a look of pure, cold menace on her face. She raised her strange-looking gun and leveled it at his wife.
“Wait!” Ben cried hoarsely. His thick fingers tangled with the ropes. Then abruptly, he stilled. He frowned and sniffed the air. His eyes widened. “I’ll be damned. It’s smoke, all right. We’re on fire!”
* * *
Josie took off her raincoat and used it to fan the flames in the metal trash bin higher and higher. She threw in some wet leaves and the smoke turned dark and oily. She billowed it some more until her eyes stung and her lungs burned.
She lit the second trash barrel using the lighter she’d found next to the grill, then the third. The night sky was becoming hazy, the crackling grew loud. The heat was fierce enough to bloom sweat all over her body and the flames bright enough to light up the back of the house like a football field.
“Come on, nice and thick. We need a bit of a show here.”
She peeled her ears for the sound of fire department sirens and kept the trash fires building. At the first sign of approach, she was gonna tip these babies over. The fire department would storm the scene, and if the hit woman had an ounce of survival instinct, she would flee immediately.
At least, Josie hoped so.
Abruptly, the back screen door of the house slid open.
* * *
Jack gunned Jessica’s poor car down the street. Before him, he saw dark plumes suddenly thread up above the night-shrouded trees, flickering red flames lighting their way.
Oh, my God, there was a fire.
He slammed the gas pedal all the way to the floor and bullied the car around the corner.
From behind him, he heard the sound of sirens splitting the air.
* * *
The woman appeared, inch by inch, the barrel of her tranquilizer gun leading the display. For a horrible moment, Josie froze, not sure what to do. She hadn’t planned on this yet. She wasn’t ready yet!
Sirens cut through the smoky sky. She saw the woman freeze, then slowly stepped back toward the house.
No! The woman couldn’t go back into the house. She was supposed to get out of the house. She was supposed to abandon her hostages. Dammit!
Josie did the only thing she could think of. She bounded out from behind the tree and sprinted across the backyard, the light of the flames putting her in plain view.
“Jack, start the engine!” she yelled. “Jack, start the engine!”
And she knew the precise moment she had the woman’s attention because the first poisoned dart whistled by her ear.
* * *
Jack slammed the brake to the floor, stopping so fast the car fishtailed drunkenly before he brought it under control. Half a block from his parents’ wooded home, the smoke was thick enough to sting his eyes, and he could feel the heat radiating out in waves. The sirens blared louder and louder, the fire department descending upon the area.
What if their arrival caused the assassin to panic and kill his parents? Or Josie? God, what had she done this time?
His gun in his hand, he abandoned the car and ran toward the heat.
* * *
“Damn!” Josie ducked, but the dart passed by close enough for her to imagine its sting. She raced away from the flames, desperate for the cover of night once more. She had the woman out of the house. She had the fire department arriving. Surely they would knock on the door, discover Mr. and Mrs. Stryker and get them out of there. They’d tell them about the woman, the police would be called, and help would arrive.
Josie just had to keep the woman entertained for say, ten, fifteen, twenty minutes. She’d managed to elude Catwoman all day and all night before. What was twenty minutes?
The next dart buried itself in the brush above her ear, and Josie bolted forward two steps faster. God, her side hurt. She plunged deeper into the forest, tripped over a tree branch and went sprawling. Gasping for breath, she heaved herself up and stumbled forward.
She couldn’t see a damn thing anymore. The night was too thick. The smoke hurt her eyes. Why wasn’t it slowing the woman down? She was shooting with uncanny accuracy given the conditions.
What about night vision goggles?
That sounded like something Super Chick would have brought along for this mission. After all, she’d had time to recover and retrieve supplies just as they had. Josie began to giggle hysterically as still she ran.
* * *
Jack thundered up the stairs of the back porch. Now he could see that three trash bins were burning, close enough together to give off intense heat. Josie must have lit them, but to what purpose?
He flattened himself against the back wall of his parents’ house, straining his ears for sound above the cackle and pop of burning wood.
His mother was sobbing. His father was soothing her with low murmurs. His palms began to sweat. Damn, where was Josie? Worse, where was the assassin?
He heard a sound from the forest behind his parents’ house. A low thud of someone falling. The crunch of leaves as someone else ran.
“Help!” his father cried out. “Help, we’re in here.”
“Dad?” Jack called out. “Are you alone?�
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“The woman’s out there,” Ben yelled immediately, understanding what his son needed to know. “Watch your back!”
Jack heard the sound of more leaves crunching, then the sound of twigs snapping. Then the sirens grew too loud for him to hear anything. The fire department had arrived.
He sprang off the front porch and raced toward the first vehicle.
“Detective Stryker, Grand Springs police!” he screamed at the first startled firefighter. “Three trash cans burning around back. Two civilians tied up in the house. Get your EMTs in there immediately. The woman has a nervous condition. Give me that.”
He grabbed a heavy-duty flashlight from the stock in the fire truck, and while the head firefighter yelled “Wait!” Jack once more began to run.
* * *
Josie halted behind a tree. Her breath was so labored, it hurt to inhale. She hunched closer to the tree trunk. She couldn’t see anything, and the fire department’s sirens were too loud for her to hear anything.
Then abruptly, as if reading her thoughts, the fire department cut the sirens. In the suddenly descending silence, all the other sounds rushed in on her.
Breathing. Heavy breathing. Right on the other side of the tree trunk.
She froze. She swallowed her next breath and squeezed her eyes shut as sweat popped out of her pores.
The assassin had found her. One more step around the tree trunk and the woman would turn, see her and fire the gun. At this close range, she couldn’t miss.
Tree branch, tree branch. Grab a weapon, Josie. Grab a rock!
But as she bent down, the woman moved. Suddenly she was right in front of Josie, a preternatural figure swathed all in black with a pair of goggles distorting her eyes. Only her hair, pale and silvery, glowed in the moonlight.
“No,” Josie whimpered, too scared to move.
The woman raised her gun. For one brief moment, the corners of her mouth lifted and Joanna Jackson smiled.
“Finally,” she murmured, and leveled the tranquilizer gun.
Jack, I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.
The woman squeezed the trigger and gunfire peeled through the hot, smoky air.
Chapter Fourteen
“How do you feel?”
The voice penetrated gentle and soft but it still made her temples throb. Josie groaned, trying to burrow back down into the blessed cocoon of unconsciousness.
“Her color’s returning.” This voice was slightly more anxious. Jack’s voice. In spite of steady beats of pain drumming against her forehead, she smiled.
“Here she comes,” the first voice said. “Josie. Josie Reynolds. Blink if you can hear me.”
She blinked, but it was only grudgingly. In the velvet softness of semiconsciousness, she was finally getting the rest she was sure she deserved.
“Josie? Josie, how do you feel?”
Reluctantly, she peeled open her eyes. The air was still smoky, and she flared her nostrils when she inhaled. Above her, red-and-blue lights whirled around and around and around. The fire engines. And police cars. Apparently, she was lying flat on the ground. Jack was leaning over her, his face heavily lined with concern. An EMT was also at her side, now taking her pulse. She saw Ben sitting with Mrs. Stryker in the background, cradling his wife against his chest and rubbing her arms.
“How is she?” Josie asked automatically.
The EMT frowned, but Jack understood immediately. His face relaxed at the sound of her rough, rasping voice and he hunkered down closer.
“Better,” he said quietly. “She was a bit shaken up, but she refused to take the drugs the doctor offered and she seems to be calming down on her own. She and my father are a lot tougher sometimes than I give them credit for.” His gaze grew soft. “How are you, Josie?”
She blinked a few more times, tested out all her limbs and discovered she was alive, after all. “Not bad for a woman who’s been running up mountainsides, spelunking caves, traversing underground lakes, and then playing cat and mouse with an assassin. What did she hit me with?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“You fainted.”
“What?” She mustered all her dignity. “I most certainly did not! A Reynolds never faints!”
“Fear of imminent death sometimes has that effect on people. It’s perfectly understandable.”
She scowled. “Well, if I fainted, why aren’t I dead?” she asked bluntly.
“I shot her.”
“You shot her?”
“In the shoulder. We have her in police custody now. The doctor has assured us that the wound isn’t serious. Probably we can begin questioning her as early as tomorrow.”
“Oh, well, this is just great! In the face of danger, I faint, you shoot a gun. I’m a miserable excuse as a sidekick.”
“You’re a perfect sidekick,” he said honestly. “While trying to burn down the neighborhood was slightly unorthodox, it did work. If you hadn’t lured her out of the house like that, I’m not sure what would’ve happened.”
She was mollified enough to try to sit up. The rescue worker and Jack immediately moved to assist.
“You’re fine,” the rescue worker said shortly. “No major injuries that I can tell. Get a good night’s rest, take some aspirin if you have a headache and, well, stop chasing criminals. You’ll be as good as new by the end of the week.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Josie wasn’t really paying attention to him anymore. Her gaze was locked on Jack. She finally gave up and curled her hand around his cheek, sighing at the lovely feel of his skin against hers. “You did it, Jack. You saved the world.”
“We did it,” he corrected her mildly. “You really did help, Josie. Your point about teamwork and trust still stands. Of course, there is the small matter of you running off on your own after giving me such lectures on the subject—”
“I learned it from you!” she interrupted hastily.
“Well, maybe we ought to learn from each other. Stick together, help each other out. Partnership?”
“Love?” she whispered hopefully.
“Love,” he promised gently.
He gathered her against his chest and held her dearly.
* * *
It took a week to sort everything out. Stone and Jessica returned from the mountains, Stone grumbling about missing all the fun. He got to spend the first session questioning Joanna Jackson, however, as Jack was still recovering. Most of the recovery involved lying in Josie’s feather bed, sleeping soundly and working on his popcorn-catching technique. By Tuesday, he could catch three out of four kernels in his mouth, which was better than Josie, so she kicked him out and told him to get back to work.
After a few more rounds of passionate sex, he managed to do just that.
Jack, however, discovered he didn’t have any better luck with Joanna Jackson than Stone did.
“Do you understand that we’ve run your prints? We have a match with warrants issued for various aliases in seven different states. You’re in a lot of trouble. You’re facing some pretty serious charges. Help us out here, and maybe we can do something for you.”
She merely regarded him coolly, as elegant and composed in an orange prison suit as a person could be. Not even the sling decorating her arm detracted from her confidence.
“You killed Olivia Stuart. You framed Josie Reynolds. Then you set out to kill both Josie and me. Who hired you, Joanna?”
“Santa Claus.”
“Come on, you’re a young, attractive female. According to our findings, you drive the right car and reside in the finest hotels. I don’t really think you would enjoy prison much, Joanna.”
She shrugged, her blues eyes betraying nothing.
Jack leaned back, crossed his ankles up on the table and adopted her own negligent pose. “So it’s worth it to you? You’d go to jail rather than finger who hired you?”
“A girl’s gotta have her professionalism, or she has nothing at all.”
“Do you love him, Joanna, is that i
t? Was this case personal, a favor for a ‘friend.’”
“I don’t have friends.”
“Funny. I certainly wouldn’t take the fall for an enemy.”
“I don’t have enemies. At least not any who are still living.”
“Then, you’d go to jail for a stranger?”
She said nothing, but her expression was more appraising.
Jack dropped his feet to the ground in the interrogation room and leaned forward. “Why did they want Olivia killed? Was it personal? Was it professional?”
“I didn’t ask.”
“Come on. Were you approached by an individual, by a corporation? From what we’ve pieced together, you seem to work mostly for private individuals.”
“I work for whoever can afford me.”
“You’re very expensive, aren’t you, Joanna?”
“Quality costs.”
“If I wanted to hire you, what would it take? Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands?”
“One hundred thousand,” she said coolly, “for an unguarded target. Up to seven digits, depending on the level of security and sophistication required.”
“Olivia Stuart had no security. She was easy money, wasn’t she?”
“Yes. As a matter of fact, she was.”
Jack’s eyes narrowed. He couldn’t stop the bolt of anger. “The cleanup, though,” he said tightly, “bet you lost a bundle on that.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Yes,” she said curtly. “But sometimes it’s like that.”
“Check is in the mail, is that how it works, Joanna?”
“Cash up front.”
“Oh, of course. You probably don’t trust anyone enough for checks. Too bad you can’t spend the money. Too bad you’ll be sitting in maximum security on a concrete bed for the next twenty-five years. By the time you get out and access your bank accounts in the Cayman Islands, you’re not going to be so young or pretty anymore. You’ll be too old to work as an assassin and not trained for anything else. You’ll have no family, no friends. My guess is, by that point, you’ll miss prison.”