Fever

by Joan Swan

  He pushed the diary back by the edge as if he couldn’t stand to touch it. His expression was one of dread masked by lack of interest. “This isn’t important now.”

  “It’s crucial now. It’s the root cause of everything that has happened in the past five years. One thing led to another, which led to another and another. And it all started with a warehouse fire.”

  Luke’s eye twitched again. The blue of his irises hardened into murky steel. His gaze darted down and away in uncharacteristic apprehension, sparking a random thought in Alyssa’s mind.

  “You were there,” she said. “You were at that fire six years ago, weren’t you?”

  “Yeah. I was there.” His gaze came back sharp, but pained. “I went through everything he did and I didn’t go off neglecting or killing people. That’s no excuse.”

  Alyssa studied him, looking for signs of increased body temperature, considering how angry he was, but nothing struck her. He wasn’t sweating, didn’t take off his jacket. His fingers weren’t burning the wood table or melting the Styrofoam coffee cup. Had Teague been the only one affected? Did Luke even know about Teague’s abilities?

  “He’s not using it as one.” She tapped the diary. “Are you going to look at it, Luke? Or are you afraid of what it might say? Then again, maybe you already know. Did you finally discover over the past few years what your sister knew early on? That the warehouse fire affected you all differently and to varying degrees? That she believed whatever Teague had been exposed to worsened her depression until it ate her soul clean away? That it was the chemical in that warehouse, the warehouse fire and ultimately the government that killed her, Luke? Not Teague?”

  TWENTY

  Teague took one final glance down the rural Oregon road, the only sight dozens of black-and-white cows grazing the neighbor’s fields and another farmhouse half a mile in the distance.

  Buddy Rawlings, Tara’s half-brother, wouldn’t be home from work for another hour, and before Teague talked to him, he wanted to pilfer the house and Rawlings’s files for information. That way he’d know what questions to ask as well as what answers to expect. And if Buddy was lying to him, or holding out on him, Teague would know.

  But he had to find a way into the house first, because evidently, even in rural Oregon, people locked their doors and windows. At least Buddy Rawlings did.

  He pulled open the barn door at the rear of the property. The hinges moaned and wood edges scraped the ground. Late afternoon sun speared the dark interior, illuminating the dust colonies floating like sea nymphs in the deep blue. The musty scent of earth mixed with the smells of tobacco, oil and gasoline. A 1960’s truck filled the right side of the garage, and Teague instantly knew where Buddy Rawlings spent every spare moment of his time.

  How a man could keep a machine as pristine as that with a workbench stretching across the left side of the barn cluttered with wall-to-wall shit, Teague would never understand, but neither did he have to. He only had to find something to jimmie a lock.

  In the far corner of the musty space, fertilizer and weed killer sat on the hard-packed dirt next to a shovel, rake and hoe. Nearby, a five-gallon can of white paint and an antique five-gallon can of gasoline sat next to an ancient lawnmower. The workbench lay scattered with empty Camel cigarette packages, spent cigarette butts and tools—wrenches, screwdrivers, a hammer, a putty knife, painting supplies.

  Teague picked up the largest screwdriver and tested the weight. “This has potential.”

  He prowled up the back steps of the house and peered through the glass on the top half of the rear door. It led to a tiny kitchen, beyond which Teague could see an equally tiny living room. He knew from casing the place, the files he wanted were probably in the closet-sized bedroom just off the kitchen.

  With the flat of the screwdriver wedged between the lock and the doorjamb, he had the door open in seconds without enough damage for Buddy to notice until well after Teague was gone. He’d already disconnected the telephone landline in the event that Buddy decided to call the cops right after Teague left. And if the guy had a cell phone, Teague had parked the truck he’d stolen from a home in Fallen Leaf Lake well out of sight so at least Buddy couldn’t tell the cops what he was driving.

  He left the door barely ajar and went directly to the office. Without wasting a second of time, he dove straight into the files, searching for anything related to Tara, their parents, or their family. He scoured tax records and real estate holdings while keeping one eye on the clock.

  A car engine sounded outside the window, startling Teague from his research. Gravel crunched under tires in front of the house.

  “No, dammit,” he muttered and shut the file cabinet door. “It’s too early.”

  Staying low, he crept to the window and peered over the edge. An olive-green Jeep Laredo stopped in the drive. Rawlings flung the driver’s door open.

  Teague ducked below the window ledge and squeezed his eyes shut. “Shit, shit, shit.”

  He scuttled back to the file cabinet, sent his fingers flying through the folders, plucking out anything remotely helpful. He pulled up his shirt, stuffed them into the waistband of his jeans and secured them by tucking in his T-shirt.

  Footsteps sounded on the porch and Teague realized too late that he couldn’t escape through the back door now. The bedroom lay directly off the open living area with a direct line of sight into the kitchen and his planned escape route.

  The front door slammed shut. He’d have to settle for Plan B.

  With his heart beating double-time, Teague coiled by the window like a snake, pressed his palms to the sash and pushed. He held his breath, only nothing happened. The window didn’t move a millimeter.

  Dammit.

  Teague inspected the sill. Painted shut.

  Fuck me.

  Would anything ever go right?

  His thoughts shot to the screwdriver he’d used to jimmie the lock. With slow, careful movements, he scored the paint along the sash, over and over, cutting through years, possibly centuries of paint layers as Rawlings rummaged in the kitchen.

  By the time chips started to fly, sweat ran down the sides of Teague’s face. He set the screwdriver down, pressed his palms to the sash, bent his knees, put his shoulders into it and pushed.

  The window gave. Slid. An inch. Another. Then stuck.

  Teague wiped his brow with the back of his hand and rubbed the sweat off on his shirt, then picked up the screwdriver again.

  Movement outside caught his eye. A car passing the house. He stepped back, pressed up against the wall and peered out. No, not passing. Stopping. Right out front. A navy-blue sedan with government plates.

  Fucking government plates.

  The gun at the base of his spine took on weight. His breathing picked up pace and his eyes honed in on the passenger door, closest to him. A dark-haired, dark skinned man appeared. Not Vasser.

  Teague’s heart tripped. What the ... ?

  Then the driver emerged and Teague’s moment of hope popped. Vasser passed the other man on his path to the house without a glance and continued toward Rawlings’s front door with single-minded purpose.

  Alyssa had told him Vasser was convinced Teague wasn’t after Kat. And yet, if Vasser believed that, why was he here? Rawlings had no tie to Teague but Kat.

  Even though he knew it was coming, the pound on the door made Teague jump. He edged toward the bedroom door, listening.

  “Look, I can’t be leaving work early at your beck and call,” Rawlings said. “I already told you guys—”

  The sharp smack of flesh and a visceral grunt sounded almost simultaneously. “You lied to me,” Vasser said, his voice tight. “You said you hadn’t talked to Tara.”

  The front door slammed. Creek took one step to the opposite side of the door where he could peer through the crack. Rawlings, nearly three hundred pounds, was bent over holding his face, Vasser circling him like a rabid animal. The unknown man stood silently at the front door, watching.

  �
�I ...” Rawlings stammered, “I ... didn’t talk to her about Creek. I just—”

  Vasser backhanded the side of Rawlings’s head. The big man hit the floor with a solid thud. “You wired her money, which means you talked to her, you motherfucker. You also told me you hadn’t seen Creek. Was that another lie? Another partial truth?”

  Vasser, for all his psychopathic twists, was an even-keel personality. Teague could never remember seeing him riled. Not like this.

  “No,” Rawlings said. “No. I haven’t seen or talked to Creek. Ever.”

  “He’s never come looking for his kid?”

  “No. Never. I swear.”

  Vasser looked at the guy standing by the door. “I think he’s lying, Burton. What do you think?”

  Burton didn’t answer, which didn’t seem to surprise Vasser, who only looked back down at Rawlings.

  Rawlings straightened, hands held out. “Tara loves that kid. Just wants to take her somewhere safe. I gave her money so she could do it, that’s all.”

  “Where’d she go?”

  Rawlings rubbed blood off the side of his mouth. “Vancouver.”

  “As in fuckin’ Canada?” Vasser asked in disbelief. “Why?”

  “Because my dad, he has a house up there.”

  “Yeah?” Vasser straightened, assessing Rawlings with suspicion. “What’s the address?”

  “Uh, Jesus, I don’t know the address. Somewhere around Queen Elizabeth Park.”

  Vasser looked at Burton. “What do you think of all this, partner?”

  To Teague’s knowledge, Vasser had never worked with a partner. The distaste in the word came through loud and clear. Something was seriously wrong.

  Burton’s dark face remained expressionless as he moved forward. Nearly as tall as Rawlings at six feet, Burton looked in the other man’s eyes as if to search for truth or lie. Long, slow, silent seconds ticked by.

  “I think we’re done here.” Burton’s voice was so soft and low, Teague almost didn’t hear the words. Without warning, Burton lifted his weapon, shoved the muzzle against Rawlings’s forehead and pulled the trigger.

  The muffled pop made Teague jump. Rawlings jerked back the same instant the rear of his skull exploded. He stumbled two giant steps, eyes wide and blank before he fell like a logged tree.

  Teague’s stomach clenched. Buckled. Shriveled.

  Vasser’s arms flew out to his sides. At some point, Vasser had drawn his weapon, because it was in his hand, but Teague hadn’t seen him do it. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Why’d you do that?”

  “Why?” Burton asked. “Did we need him for something?”

  “No, but did you ever stop to think about how we’re going to explain how this guy got an agent’s bullet in his brain, you dumbfuck?”

  “Freeze!” The authoritative, familiar voice sent another zing down Teague’s spine, and not in a good way. “Federal Agent.”

  Vasser and Burton swung toward the front door, weapons raised and aimed at the newcomer.

  “Funny,” Vasser said. “Me, too. Up for a game of chicken, Agent Ransom?”

  Teague shifted to get a better view. Sure enough, Luke stood there, backed up by a man Teague didn’t recognize. The other guy was tall, with black hair, wearing a crisp suit. But there was something familiar about him. The eyes, the chin, the bone structure ... in a masculine sort of way, this guy looked a lot like ... Alyssa.

  Shit. Her brother Mitch.

  Shock and dread congealed in Teague’s belly. He moved to the window, peered toward the street, scanned for another car, and spotted a black BMW parked inconspicuously half a block away and, yes, Alyssa, skulking behind a tree.

  “Fucking A ...” he whispered and scuttled back over to peer toward the foursome in the living room, his mind spinning for options like a cyclone.

  “What the fuck is going on here?” Luke growled in the other room. “Put your weapons down.”

  “Sorry to say,” Vasser said, “that’s not going to happen, Agent. But this doesn’t involve you. At least not right now. Unless you’d like to end up like this”—he tipped his head toward the carnage on the floor at his feet—“I’d suggest you walk out of here and let us handle Creek. Think about it. There’s a lot of incentive. Once we find him, he will never show up on your radar again.”

  Teague’s heart beat too fast. His head went light. The Luke that Teague used to know would never back down. His former friend’s values, ethics, ego, training, would have made it impossible for him to turn away in this moment. But now, after all that had happened between them, with all Luke had to lose, Teague didn’t know what to expect.

  He eased the weapon from the back of his jeans and crouched by the door leading to the living area and open to the kitchen. The space was so small, one wrong move and they could easily end up in wall-to-wall blood.

  Movement out the room’s side window caught Teague’s attention. His gaze jerked left, where he peered through the glass and found Alyssa creeping up the rear walk, past the barn and toward the back door.

  After that one shot, Alyssa couldn’t stand the silence. Luke had told her to stay put like she was a freaking dog. Mitch had left her to play cop without a second look, just as he had their entire childhood, running off with his friends and leaving her behind.

  Now, movement inside the house passed through the single-sheet glass like shadows on the surface of a lake. She crouched as she neared the back door and the upper window panel. Standing to the side, she eased in until her eyes just cleared the edge of the glass.

  Luke and Mitch stood opposite Vasser and the other man she’d seen at Luke’s house earlier in the day. All had their weapons drawn in a room the size of a large bathroom. Alyssa’s throat tightened as she scanned their faces. No one looked ready to back down.

  Then her gaze caught something else. Something lower. On the floor. Legs. That led to a body. That led to a head. No ... yes ... She squinted, trying to make sense of the ... Oh, God. A partial head. And blood. And something sprayed across the room ... something that looked like ... tissue.

  Her breathing stuttered. Her mind numbed out.

  “Lys ... Alyssa ... Alyssa.”

  The hushed sound of her name floated at the edges of her brain, somewhere far away. Her head wavered, legs weakened.

  “Alyssa fucking Foster.” The furious hiss penetrated her foggy head. “Get the fuck out of here. Right this fucking minute.”

  The swearing pierced the remaining haze and when her mind came around, she looked to her right. Teague met her gaze through the window and mouthed: Get out. Now.

  Then he opened the door separating him from the four men and entered the living room. He swept up behind Vasser in one stealthy move and pressed the weapon in his hand to the other man’s cranium.

  “No.” Alyssa’s voice came out as nothing more than a ragged whisper. “No, no, no.”

  “Here I am, Vasser,” Teague said. “Silver platter. This is between you and me. Let them go.”

  Every method of coping she’d ever learned failed. Nothing met this level of extremity, not even medical life and death. These were two of the men she loved most looking death in the face well before their time. This was her watching those two men test fate partially because of decisions she’d made. No, this had definitely not been in any crisis-planning curriculum or life lesson she’d ever learned.

  Alyssa backed down the walk, her mind stumbling for traction. What could she do? Calling the cops was out. She didn’t have a weapon. If she walked in there, she risked causing havoc. But dammit, she couldn’t just stand outside and wait. There had to be something she could do.

  Her gaze swept the old ranch house falling apart at the seams. Unlike the gas station where she’d first stopped with Teague, this place had plenty of loose siding and broken pipes lying around, only those were no weapons against four guns.

  “Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.” With panic crawling up her throat, Alyssa sprinted toward the barn, its door partly open. She was
already panting when she stepped into the rancid space, filled with nothing but junk, save a stunningly restored old truck.

  “Come on, Lys, think.” Her heart pounded hard against her ribs, hands poised to grab the first thing that made sense. Only, nothing made sense. After all, what the hell did she know about breaking up a gun fight? Give her a ruptured aorta, a severed spine, a failed heart—no problem. But, this? She couldn’t even begin to fathom how many things could go wrong in this situation.

  She eyed a shovel in the corner—throw it through the window? What if it startled one of them so badly his weapon discharged and she inadvertently started a gun war? Make noise in the barn? What if they simply ignored it?

  Alyssa pressed both hands to her forehead and wandered around the darkened space, her gaze searching for something, anything that would pop an idea into place. And dammit, she was desperate.

  A crowbar, hammer, lighter, screwdriver, wrench, paint supplies, bag of weed killer, can of gasoline.

  Click.

  Her mind stopped on the gasoline, though she didn’t immediately know why. She bent over and tested the weight. Her arms and ribs flexed with effort. It was full. Thirty awkward pounds full.

  “Holy crap.”

  The car with government plates so blatantly parked right up next to the house as if it belonged there appeared in Alyssa’s mind. A sinister plan snapped together so perfectly, so clearly. Wrong—legally. Yet right—on so many other levels. And there was a vindictive element that tempted Alyssa in a way she’d never experienced before. She wanted to see the people that had torn Teague’s life apart pay, and she was going to use her act of revenge to get Teague and Mitch and Luke out of there safely. It was the kind of distraction they couldn’t ignore. The kind they would have to act on. And it was all Alyssa could think of in the moment. Which was all she had. A moment.