Holding his gun on her, he handed her the phone. "He wants to talk to you."
"Who?" she asked.
"Does it matter?"
She took the phone from him. "This is Dahlia Jensen." She listened a second, then handed the phone back to Max. "I'm supposed to tell you that if you're lying … or if I'm lying … you're as good as dead."
Also something he knew. As soon as this was over, he knew he'd have to disappear without a trace. He had no doubt there would be a contract on his life if there wasn't already. Max took the phone from her and put the receiver back to his ear.
"There's just one small problem," came the voice over the line. When Max didn't answer, he continued, "Her sister testified today. You're too late. It doesn't matter anymore." There was a pause. "Kill her."
It was the order that he knew was coming, and it was the job he'd originally contracted to do.
He met the woman's eyes. Except, she wasn't just "the woman." For the life of him, he couldn't think of her as "the target." She was Dahlia Jensen, a woman who didn't cook, but who had been smart enough to let her boyfriend bodyguard take over when they realized how dangerous the situation was. She had a dog he liked, and within her CD collection, he'd found some of his favorite music.
He broke the connection, regretting that he would do what he'd been paid to do. Going after Franklin Lawrence and his henchmen … he wasn't going to regret that a bit. Lawrence was already dead. He just didn't know it yet.
* * *
Chapter 15
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In the distance Jack could see the house just as Dahlia had described it. The maroon sedan was parked off to one side, partially hidden by a shed. As soon as he realized there was no way that he could approach the house in his vehicle without being seen, he drove on by. A mile later, the road dipped far enough that the roof of the house disappeared in his rearview mirror. He parked the car.
Jack got out of the car and walked to the top of the shallow slope, making sure that he stayed low enough so he wouldn't be visible from the house. He studied the contour of the land and mapped out the approach he could take that would get him within a hundred yards of the house. If he had been in top physical shape, he could have covered the mile between here and the house in less than ten minutes, even carrying a hundred pounds of equipment. With his knee in a brace the walk was going to be longer. A hell of a lot longer.
Jack went back to his car and picked up the phone. Hearing nothing from Dahlia, he reluctantly broke the connection and put in another call to Callahan. When the officer came on the line, Jack relayed his location and how he'd come to follow Dahlia. The officer assured him that help was on the way. Unless a county sheriff happened to be right in the neighborhood, Jack figured help was an hour or more away.
He wasn't willing to wait that long.
Patting Dahlia's dog one last time, he left his SUV. He headed for the house, following the route he had mapped out. Less than a hundred yards after leaving the car, rain began to fall.
Fall was a mild word for it, Jack decided. The rain poured from the sky in a deluge that soaked him to the skin.
He plowed through the torrent, ignoring the mud that stuck to his feet, cursing his knee that kept him from moving as fast and as efficiently as he wanted to, hoping the lightning that sizzled through the sky all around him didn't strike him, and most of all, praying the knot in his gut was wrong—that he wasn't too late.
He put one foot in front of the other. That was the way you got where you needed to be. Endure the hardship, he reminded himself. He had known what was at stake, and when he'd heard the car coming, he should have gotten up to check it out himself. "Pay attention to the basics" was something he preached as an R.I. He hadn't followed his own dictate, and Dahlia was paying the price. A rookie wouldn't have made the stupid mistakes he had today.
He paused just long enough to catch his breath. Focus. Stop thinking about what's already happened. That doesn't count. Right now … focus on that.
Finally he reached the windbreak. The row of bushes closest to the road were lilacs, some of them budding out and some dead. He slipped between and found another row—some other kind of tall bush that was filled with enough brambles to protect a fairy-tale castle. When he finally worked his way to the last row, the trees growing there were ponderosas that would someday be immense. The house was no more than a hundred yards away, and there wasn't a bit of cover in between.
Jack picked up a branch the size of a baseball bat and broke the twigs off it. The branch was no fighting stick and would probably splinter with the first hit, but so long as he got in the first blow, it would have done its duty. Makeshift weapon in hand, he dropped to his belly and crawled across the open ground.
A brilliant fork of lightning struck so close that thunder immediately roared, deafening in its intensity. In the next second the rain turned to pea-size hail that pelted onto Jack's back, each individual piece stinging and robbing him of concentration.
One miserable yard at a time he crawled toward the house, not bothering to look up. If Pale Eyes came to the window and saw him, it was all over. Nothing Jack could do about that except keep moving forward.
When Jack reached the house, he stood up and flattened himself against the clapboard siding. Hail continued to shoot from the sky, bouncing as it hit the ground, pummeling mercilessly against him.
Cautiously he moved toward one window and looked in. Nothing. Just an empty room.
Jack eyed the broken window and hoped he could get in without alerting Pale Eyes that he had arrived. As if in answer to his prayers, there was another close lightning strike, and thunder boomed. Jack lifted himself up and swung a leg over the sill. Another lightning flash, this one even closer and so bright that it illuminated the inside of the house. Jack swung his other leg inside and stood up.
In the other room he heard voices—a deeper one, then Dahlia's—though he couldn't make out the words. Relieved as Jack was to hear her voice, much as he wanted to rush forward and make sure she was okay, now was no time to get careless.
He moved away from the window, angling himself so he wasn't in front of the door leading to the other room. With each step he tested his weight against the squeaky floor, timing his movements to the thunder that rumbled around him. Never before had he been thankful for a storm as severe as this one.
At the doorway he flattened himself against the wall, wishing he could see where they were in the other room.
"Turn around, Dr. Jensen," Pale Eyes said.
"I think I'd rather keep my eyes on you," Dahlia returned, her voice surprisingly calm.
To Jack she sounded as though she was next to him on the other side of the wall.
"Your phone call … the news wasn't good, was it?" she added.
"Your sister has testified."
Jack heard Dahlia sigh.
"Turn around," Pale Eyes commanded again.
There was a sliding sound along the wall next to Jack, then footsteps crossing the room.
"I've been thinking about something you said earlier," Dahlia said, her voice not so close. "When I said you'd never get away with this, you said to tell you something you didn't know. And, a little while ago you said something about kidnappings being a dumb idea." Another step sounded on the floor.
"What I think is hardly the point, Dr. Jensen."
Another step sounded from the other room.
Jack finally peeked around the corner of the door. Dahlia was crossing to the other side of the room, headed toward the front window, also broken out, walking in such a way that she hadn't turned her back on the man. He was pointing a handgun at Dahlia.
Jack wished he was ten feet closer to the guy, whose back faced him.
"I know why you want me to turn around," she said, leaning her hands against the top rail of a seatless straight chair. The chair stood between her and Pale Eyes. "I'm not going to be led like some poor little lamb to an execution."
"Step away from the chair," he ordered.<
br />
She shook her head. "Like you said once, that would be much too easy."
She picked up the chair and charged the four feet to Pale Eyes. He fired just as the chair hit him. The chair broke into pieces.
Jack bolted into the room, his pulse pounding in his throat.
Screaming, she picked up one of the legs and swung again. This blow hit Pale Eyes across the shoulders, and he dropped his gun.
Pale Eyes scrambled after it, and Dahlia was right with him, hitting and screaming and hitting him across the back with the chair leg. Still he didn't fall.
Jack hit him across the back with the branch. It shattered, and the man stumbled but didn't go down. Dahlia's eyes met Jack's in a millisecond of stunned surprise.
Pale Eyes turned on Jack, who then tackled the guy, knocking him to the floor.
Dahlia slid across the floor, scrambling for the gun.
Somehow, Jack was here, covered in mud, the skin stretched tight across his cheekbones, and his lips drawn back in a grimace. A dream, she thought on a sob. It must be a dream, because Jack wasn't here. And yet he was. In horror she watched the two men fight. As if knowing he was outmatched, Max repeatedly struck Jack's injured knee. They didn't say anything, just grunted with the intensity of two men bent on killing each other.
Dahlia's fingers closed around the handgun. Shaking, she sat up and watched Jack and Max wrestle across the floor.
And suddenly, there it was, a clear shot of Max. Somehow time caught in an endless second, their motions slowing, the sound of the blows deeper, scarier. Max had been seconds within killing her, she knew it.
Another sob clawed up her throat.
She wrapped her hands around the pistol grip and remembered what her father had taught her an eon ago when they had gone target shooting—keep your eyes open.
She fired.
Max fell back. An instant later a bloodstain appeared high on his shoulder.
Dahlia let go of the gun, and it fell to the floor with a clatter accompanied by another loud boom from the thunder.
Oh, God, she'd shot him.
Slowly Jack rolled away from Max and sat up. Without looking at Dahlia he crossed over to Max, efficiently searching him and removing everything from his pockets—ammunition, keys, a wallet. Jack crossed the man's arms and feet, the lightning outside punctuating his movements.
As he came toward her, time resumed its normal cadence, the reverberating thunder punctuating Jack's footfalls. He picked up the handgun at her feet. Still without saying anything, he took her hands and unlocked the hand-cuffs.
He looked awful. His face and clothes were more covered with mud than not. There was a gash on his head, and in the gloom she couldn't tell what was blood and what was mud. His eyes belonged to a stranger, bleak and hard. And why wouldn't they be? It was her fault, 100 percent her fault that he was injured and wet and that they were in this mess. A simple "I'm sorry" would never make up for this.
Tears welled up to the surface, and with more discipline than she realized she had, she swallowed them back and took a deep breath.
"Is he dead?" Her voice shook.
"No."
Thank God. Despite her bravado from earlier, she hadn't wanted to kill anyone. It had been sheer dumb luck that she hit him at all.
She threw her arms around Jack. He was wet and covered with mud and she didn't care. His arms came briefly around her, then his hands were at her waist, setting her away from him.
"Let's go."
He hadn't met her glance, and his voice was just as hard as his gaze. Dread settled into her stomach, and she followed him out of the house and into the shockingly cold rain. He held the driver's seat door to the sedan open, and she climbed in. He handed her the keys, then came around the front of the car. As she watched, she realized what she had taken for a sexy saunter that very first day was actually a limp—not much of one that day, but today he walked as though every step hurt. And she was more sorry than she could say.
He climbed into the seat. Without a word she started the engine and drove down the slope to the county road.
"My car is that way," Jack said.
She turned in the direction indicated. "You found the keys."
He shook his head. "I had a spare set stashed."
"Prepared again," she said, parking the sedan next to his car and killing the engine.
"Not enough." He held out his hand for the keys. When she gave them to him, he got out of the car and opened the trunk. He retrieved the weapons that Max had taken earlier.
Rain continued to pelt down on them as they transferred the weapons to Jack's vehicle.
Once again, he handed her the keys. "If you're up to driving, I'd appreciate it."
She met his gaze and wished she saw something there, anything that would let her know that things between them were somehow going to be okay. The man who had been there so repeatedly for her was nowhere to be found within Jack's controlled expression. The eyes that briefly met hers could have belonged to a stranger.
He had come for her. Whatever else was wrong, he'd been there to the end. In her experience that was completely unique. She'd never forget that no matter what.
"Jack."
His mud-covered hand came up as if he wanted to touch her, and then at the last minute he didn't. "There will be time later to talk about this, Dahlia."
She stared at him, positive that somehow they had just run out of time. And she hadn't seen it coming. He was so remote that she knew there was no chance he'd put his arms around her if she stepped close to him. The knowledge wouldn't have been so bad if she hadn't wanted a hug from him more than she wanted her next breath.
"Okay," she finally agreed.
She opened the door and there was Boo, wagging her tail in greeting just as she always did, her face happy in spite of everything. The sheer ordinariness of it did her in. With a sob she picked up Boo and held her close to her face. Boo gave her little dog kisses, then jumped out of her arms and went to Jack. They both climbed in, and the dog settled onto Jack's lap.
When they were underway, he pulled the cell phone from his belt.
When the call connected, Jack asked for Callahan, then related that they needed to send paramedics out for the man who had kidnapped Dahlia. After telling them the bare bones of what had happened, Jack ended the call and clipped the phone back to his belt.
"I got you instead of 911," Dahlia said.
"Yeah." Jack looked over at her. Her hair was a mess, and she was nearly as filthy as he was. Dirt was smudged on her face from the tears she'd shed at one point. He'd never seen a more beautiful face. "You did great, acting hysterical and all the while telling me right where he was taking you."
Her eyes became misty. "I wasn't even sure that anyone was listening."
"I heard you. You okay?"
She nodded. "You?"
He rolled one of his shoulders. "I've had better days."
Her chin quivered. He couldn't blame her for that, either. Because of her own moxie, she'd gotten out of this. She'd kept her head, thought things through, and when she'd been backed into a corner, she had attacked. And none of what she'd endured the past couple of hours should ever have happened, wouldn't have happened if he'd kept his vow to himself. If he'd kept his hands off her, he wouldn't have been thinking about the feel of her lithe body beneath him instead of protecting her—doing the job he was hired to do.
"Your knee—"
"Is probably going to require surgery again." He stared out the window at the passing landscape. They were finally about to drive out of the rain. He gave voice to the truth that he'd spent months trying to avoid. "My days as a Ranger are well and truly over."
"Because of your knee."
"Yeah."
She flexed her hands around the steering wheel. "I'm sorry, Jack."
"Sorry doesn't change a damn thing," he said. He had failed to keep her safe, and being sorry wouldn't change that. When he reported in to Ian, there was nothing to tell his friend but that
he'd failed to keep Dahlia from harm's way. No way should Max have gotten close enough to plant bugs in her house or flatten the tires of his vehicle at will or get his hands on her. Jack had no excuses, and being sorry wouldn't change a thing. He'd promised to keep her safe, and he hadn't.
If he'd been five minutes later … the idea of what could have happened scared him almost as much as what actually had.
"Did I hear the guy say that your sister had testified?"
"Yes." Dahlia glanced over at him. "Looks like you're out of a job. It's over."
"Yeah."
Over. That about said it all, he decided. From the corner of his eye he watched her. She repeatedly glanced in his direction, and he wasn't man enough to meet her gaze. Admitting how miserably he had failed her—how could he ask her forgiveness for that?
He had no recollection of falling asleep but he must have because when he opened his eyes, they were sitting beneath the canopy of the emergency room entrance of the hospital. He glanced at his watch and was shocked to see the time was well after nine o'clock.
Though he insisted that he could walk in under his own steam, and protested that he wanted to go home, he found himself loaded onto a gurney and hustled into a curtained room.
Dahlia started to follow Jack inside, but a uniformed guard pointed toward her car. "You'll have to move the vehicle, ma'am."
After she parked, she found herself relegated to the waiting room, and the minutes stretched endlessly into an hour without any word about what was going on with him. She paced the waiting room, reliving bits and pieces of all that had happened. The instant Jack was shot, the moment she shot Max, the fear.
Sometime later an officer came into the waiting room, and called her name.
"James Callahan," he said, coming toward her. "We met last night. This is Special Agent Connor from the FBI. We're looking for Mr. Trahern."
She nodded toward the closed double doors. "He's in there."
"Do you mind taking some time right now to tell us what happened."
Thinking the routine was too familiar, Dahlia related what had happened from the time the tire went flat to arriving at the emergency room.
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