“You’re not as smart as you think, Aidan. You’re not the only one who escaped to the big city. When this is over I’m going to be a thousand miles away from here.” He laughed, the sound rough and dry like grit that floated discordantly across the clearing. “And Fish,” he said, referring to his original name. “He will never return. Mark will take his place, forever.” He swept the gun across each of them. “I will be the last man standing. For that’s the only way any of this will work in my favor. Too bad really. Some of you were beginning to grow on me.” His eyes darted from one to the other. “I even called some of you friend, once.”
“Mark, I can’t believe this of you,” Aidan said, the reality of what was occurring almost beyond comprehension. He focused on the facts, divorced his mind from who these men had once been to him.
“Attempting reason. Good of you, old chap.” His gaze swept across all of them. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not all bad. I just have my limits. Who do you think protected Blue from his own ineptitude? When a couple of tribesmen from upriver asked questions, I gave the authorities something to think about.”
“Damn it, Mark, you shot them,” Aidan said as he thought of Andrew’s mention of two other bodies.
“You!” Blue accused, glaring at Mark. “You told me I’d hang for Malcolm and that was only one.”
“Fool,” Mark replied with iced precision. “Malcolm had potential, I was grooming him to take my business far.”
“Your business!” Blue’s face was red and his hand clutched the knife and Garrett, as if both were lifelines.
“You were only playing second fiddle to me, Blue. You know that. Who else had the potential to expand? Certainly not you.” He chuckled. “If the Chinese weren’t blamed for Malcolm’s murder, I made sure there was a backup plan. Who do you think put that feather into Malcolm’s pocket? That way there would be no doubt as to who murdered Malcolm. Case closed.”
“Bastard.”
“You’ve been outplayed, Blue,” Mark said calmly. “Unfortunately, now you will all have to die.”
“And how do you plan to explain that to the authorities?” Aidan asked while his mind spun through options. Behind Blue he could see Ian moving stealthily through the underbrush. He counted on that to be the distraction he needed.
“The jungle is very unforgiving, Aidan, or haven’t you noticed.”
It was then that Ian leapt, grabbing Blue from behind. It was enough for Garrett to slip out of Blue’s grasp. Blue rocked, disoriented for a moment, the smaller man clinging to his back. He shook him off and swung around as Ian dodged the knife but not his fist.
“Ian!” Garrett wavered free from Blue, obviously torn between flight and rescue.
“Run!” Aidan commanded her as everything in him wanted to rush to her and take her to safety. It was impossible. Mark would bring him down in an instant. With Garrett out of Blue’s clutches, he had to let things play out a little longer. These weren’t strangers he could kill with a single bullet, they were people he cared about, and people he had cared about.
Footsteps crashed through the brush.
“Stay back!” Mark shouted.
“Stop, he’s armed!” Aidan shouted as Drew and Burke simultaneously charged into the clearing. In the confusion, Aidan dove as the explosion rocked the small clearing. Blue went down even as Aidan hit him, tackling him to safety—too late.
Aidan rolled with his brother’s body in his arms. Blood covered his hands as he looked into the face of his brother and saw only the silent stare of death. Mark’s bullet had taken Blue down. And it wasn’t over. Another shot exploded and a woman screamed.
“Rett!” He was on his feet, scanning the perimeter even as he saw the blood, so much blood trailing toward the river. Three men and the raging river and then he saw her, a small figure holding a branch, as if that alone would stop the carnage. One of the men was obviously injured, while the other, Drew, was wrestling with Mark. City soft and thirty pounds lighter, he didn’t stand a chance. And even as he thought that, Mark got off another shot with Garrett in the line of fire.
Aidan charged without thought. But the distance was too great. A punch from Mark sent Drew into the river even as Burke, bleeding, lost his balance and Mark’s push had him tumbling down the steep embankment and into the violent current.
It was all a blur. Garrett was on her knees, no longer using the branch as a weapon but as a means to save her team from the river. Her tear-choked voice was music to his ears. She was alive and unhurt. And even as he thought that he heard the laugh and knew what was about to happen. He was too late. Mark had Garrett, a thick forearm around her waist, his gun waving in his other hand. “Move and she follows the rest.”
“Mark, I never would have suspected. And I certainly don’t think you’d hurt a woman. You’re too civilized for that.” Aidan began fighting for some semblance of control, rewinding the last few minutes in a desperate attempt at distraction.
“Wouldn’t I?” Mark’s grip tightened and color slipped from Garrett’s face as she fought for air. He twisted and looked coldly at the water behind him. “When I ditch this place no one and nothing will follow me.”
Aidan schooled his features as Mark’s dilemma came to him. He would have shot them both by now if he had enough bullets. He didn’t. Garrett gave him a slight lift of her brow and from the corner of his eye he followed her gaze and saw a movement. Sid.
A crack of underbrush had Mark’s attention, and in that split second Garrett twisted and drove her elbow into his gut. Mark doubled over, releasing her.
“Roll and run!” Aidan shouted even as he dove, hitting Mark with his full weight and throwing both of them to the edge of the raging river. They rolled once before Aidan punched Mark, driving him backward, his body twisting sideways into the river to be snatched by the relentless current before Aidan could get his breath.
“Spectacular job, mate!” Sid glowed from behind him.
Aidan turned and looked at him oddly. “Burke and Drew didn’t make it.”
“Son of a bitch!” Sid drove a fist into the palm of his hand.
Aidan took a deep breath. There was only one body in the clearing, Blue. The others were gone, taken by the river and eventually, more than likely, the many jungle predators. He looked at the sky and fought for calm. In his peripheral vision he could see the treetops. The branches broke the clear blue of the endless sky, unchanged, surreal in the face of this tragedy. Blue was dead and with him had gone everything he had thought they had together. The brother of his heart had been no brother at all. The friend he had once had, Mark, gone too.
His gaze dropped and he saw Garrett waiting for him. It was unbelievable as he took her in his arms, trembling but safe. Around them there was carnage. That four men had lost their lives here was incomprehensible.
“Aidan,” she said softly into his shoulder.
“Shhh.” His hand was on the back of her head, a soft caress, reminding her that he was here and he was real.
“I can’t believe this happened.” She raised her head. “Blue?”
“Gone too.”
“Oh, Aidan. I’m so sorry.”
She turned in his arms, putting a slight distance between them. “He was tortured, Aidan. He spoke of Anne. And I believe that for a time he thought that I was Anne.” She looked up at him. “He spoke of the money but I don’t think that was what drove him.”
“He lost his mind. I know that. He wasn’t the Blue I remember,” Aidan said as his hand lightly brushed her cheek. “His loss saddens me as it will Akan, but we are both stronger men than that.”
It was a silent and sad walk as the group made their way to where Aidan had disembarked so few hours ago. And when they were settled in the boat that had brought him to the beginning of this heartbreaking journey, Aidan could only close his eyes as the Iban driver spun the boat neatly around in the rough current. For the second time they were leaving the remains of a broken expedition behind them.
Chapter Thirty<
br />
“You know, don’t you?”
Akan shook his head and blew a ring of smoke. “I will shed no tears. I have seen much in my lifetime. Buried many.” But despite his words, his eyes gleamed. “I had my suspicions but he was my son.” He stubbed out the cigarette and put it in a rusted half-gallon pail. “As are you.”
Aidan stared out into the dense green of the jungle. The longhouse was silent in midday and in the quiet he still wrestled with anger and guilt. Blue was his brother, he should grieve.
“I’m angry too,” Akan’s voice was soft. “He could have been so much. But I am glad one of my sons lives. There is reason to rejoice and there is reason to grieve. One balances the other.” He looked down to the river. “Your woman, she waits. Take comfort in her arms.”
The hug was brief but it imprinted the love that lay between the two men, one sun-wizened and the other bronzed and tall.
“We’ll talk later,” Akan said as he turned away. “In the meantime you must take your mind from the death and move forward to your own future.” He pointed to Garrett. “Go.”
Aidan took a deep breath. In his peripheral vision he could see the treetops. He thought of the peace he found above the forest floor amid the trees, and there was no peace in the thought. His gaze dropped and he saw Garrett waiting for him.
He held out his hand. “Let’s get out of here.”
“I’m sorry, Aidan.”
“You don’t need to be sorry.”
“It’s incomprehensible to lose both a friend and a brother.”
“There were too many losses, Burke too.” He drew a finger along her silken cheek. “I know that has you torn up, but in a way, we were lucky. Drew lived.” It had been touch-and-go when they had pulled him out of the river. Drew was still under the shaman’s care, awaiting transport out, but he’d live.
“I don’t know if I can ever forgive myself.”
“You have to.”
“I’ll try,” she said but her voice was a thread of its former self.
Aidan took her hand and they left the longhouse without a backward glance.
A bird called from somewhere in the canopy and ahead something swished quickly through the underbrush.
He let go of her hand as the green-curtained forest opened into a plant-bordered paradise with water streaming down a small cliff.
She stepped into the rock alcove and drew in a breath that was audible despite the rush of water churning over the rocks and into the pool in front of them.
“It’s beautiful.” Her words were a sigh of pleasure.
He placed his hands on her shoulders, slight, delicate shoulders with the strength to lead an army. She’d proven that to him more than once.
She turned around, her lips soft against his chest. “I can’t believe it, a waterfall. It’s incredible. Aidan?”
He pulled her close; all he could think was that she had survived. Blue could have killed her. It was incomprehensible.
He couldn’t help it. He kissed her. Warm and languid, the kiss trembled in the tropical heat and threatened to steal all reason. He broke away while he still could. And while he tottered on the edge of reality, she looked unaffected.
“Is it safe to swim in it?” she asked.
“Sure.”
“I don’t have a swimsuit. Do you?”
He shook his head. The heat was killing him and it wasn’t just the jungle, not anymore.
He peeled his shirt off.
“You’re going in?”
“After you.” He didn’t know what came over him. Maybe it was the need for some playful relief in the midst of an emotional cauldron. Maybe it was just that he wanted to get closer to her. Whatever it was, he didn’t spend much time analyzing it before he acted.
“No.” She shook her head.
“Yes,” he said as he lifted her and tossed her into the pool that fronted the small waterfall. She went under and he followed her. He jumped feet-first and landed beside her. The water was cool, a delicious contrast to the tropical heat. He came up for air almost reluctantly and playfully shook water everywhere and especially on her.
“Aidan,” she protested.
She was so close he could feel her warm breath on his chest. Her hair was wet and sleek, and droplets of water clung to her cheek. He dry swallowed, his imagination seeing her body revealed in every tantalizing curve despite the fact that she was up to her neck in water.
“Bastard!” she said good-naturedly and shoved him. He staggered, played along with her game and went under. When he surfaced, he spun around looking for her and blinked to clear his water-blurred vision. She was really up to her neck now. He was out for revenge. He chuckled. And then he saw her.
Up to her neck. Somehow the thought was appropriate. So like her, she was unfazed. She stole his edge when she pulled off her T-shirt and tossed it to shore. Her pants followed. He was mired in water and desire as she trod water and laughed.
He didn’t know when he consciously reached for her but suddenly she was in his arms. Wet skin glided in a silken haze over wet skin. She smelled like fresh air. She smelled like woman. He wanted to kiss the life out of her, make love to her like none of the horror had happened. Hot, heavy, no-holding-back sex.
She was beautiful and he wanted her. It was inevitable. He folded her into his arms. His head dropped to meet her lips. She was so tiny. She fit so perfectly against him. She was lost in his arms.
Lost.
What was he thinking? She was soft and strong against his side, an erotic dichotomy. She was a powerhouse that had just unleashed the full impact of her passion on him. His whole body quivered as their lips collided, as she sucked the life force from him. As her taste flooded his mouth. He didn’t know what she held to, all he knew was that he clung to her.
He thought he heard her throaty chuckle. It was hard to tell through the roaring buzz that blocked all coherent thought.
Her hands clutched his shoulders and her slight frame imprinted against him. He groaned and pulled her closer. He’d never felt anything like it. And when it was over, he was more lost than when it had begun.
Chapter Thirty-one
It was like the interlude at the pond had given them the strength to face what was to come. Together they climbed the longhouse’s narrow worn steps. On the verandah, rice lay spread out in thin layers to dry. At one end a dog dozed and a fly buzzed lazily around it.
“This way.” Aidan took her hand.
A cowboy hat lay on a chair outside a door near the end of the longhouse. And for a moment they both stopped. Aidan ran a finger over the hat that had once belonged to his brother. He squeezed her hand. “Would you wait outside if I asked?”
“No. We’re in this together.” She turned the unlocked doorknob and swung open a door to a room that had housed many generations before, in a tribe that had lived communally for hundreds of years. A breeze skirted along the verandah and ruffled her shirt. From the corner of her eye she could see the skull rocking gently in the rafters. The last human skull, hunted and killed, beheaded and hung from these rafters as a prize of war, or maybe an offering for one man’s bride. She shivered and hesitated in the doorway. It was Aidan who led the way into the oddly empty room that contained only a mat and a bamboo woven chair. There was neither loom nor mirror to indicate a woman’s presence.
“Do you smell that?” she whispered.
“Stay here,” Aidan replied grimly. “Please.”
And there was something in his voice that made her listen. She waited as he went upstairs, where the smell emanated from. It smelled like flesh decomposing, like . . .
When he returned, he was pallid despite his golden tan.
“I should have gone with you.”
“No,” he said firmly as he closed the door behind them.
“What now?” She took his hand.
“For you, nothing. For me, I see Akan. There’s something I believe my father has not told me.”
“Aidan.”
“Don’t say
it.” And the look on his face scared her like no words could.
Garrett glanced down to the river and saw the boy who seemed to be everywhere, the boy who had met them that first day. Silently she headed for the river.
“You’ve come to hear what I know.” He smiled a rather grim smile for such a young boy.
“What do you know?”
“Not here.” He motioned to the river. “I’ll take you out of earshot.”
He stepped into a longboat. “Hurry.”
“No!”
“Do you want to hear what I know or not?”
She hesitated before gingerly stepping through the water and into the wooden boat.
The boy stood at the back of the boat with a pole in hand and easily maneuvered the boat into the current. “We don’t want others to hear.”
“What’s your name?” The boat rocked and she clung to the edges. “Don’t go too far.”
“I won’t.” He smiled and dropped one hand from the pole, holding it out.
She took it with tentative haste.
“Malang. Call me Mick.”
When he returned his attention and his hand to maneuvering the boat with the pole, she eased her nail-grinding hold on the edge of the boat and asked, “Mick?”
“Yeah, you know, like this—” And he burst into an off-key rendition of “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction.”
Despite everything Garrett had to smile. Who would have thought a pubescent retro Jagger would reside here in the middle of the Borneo rain forest?
“Movement up top. Get down,” he hissed as he dropped to all fours.
She bent over while thinking that she might look a fool and only be caught up in a boy’s vivid imagination.
“Okay, we’re out of sight.”
Garrett sat up.
“Blue took the head,” the boy said as he guided the worn wooden boat along the outside edge of the river and away from the rapid and deadly current in the middle.
She forgot to breathe at that. This was no game. “Why?”
Fatal Intent Page 17