Mean Streak
Page 34
Jack looked over at Hayes, posing a silent question. Hayes shrugged. “Can’t hurt.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Stick around here where it’s safe.”
“We’ve canceled the BOLO,” Knight told him. “Reason we gave was that last night’s incident had been a domestic misunderstanding. We didn’t let on who you were. Agent Connell here said you’d be royally pissed if word got out and a big to-do was made of you. Anyhow, you’re safe.”
“I didn’t mean safe for me,” Hayes said, his lips barely moving. “I meant for Jeff. If I see him, I’m liable to kill him.”
At that point Grange rejoined them and reported that a deputy was in place. “He’s got Jeff’s suite and car in plain sight.”
As Connell was pulling on his coat, he said to Hayes, “I’ll call when we’ve got him in custody. What’s your current phone number?”
Hayes hesitated.
Connell rolled his eyes. “Look, I know you leave Rebecca a way to contact you.”
Hayes pulled a cell phone from his pocket, and when the number showed up on the readout, he held it out for Connell to see and commit to memory. “Got it.” Turning to the detectives, he said, “Let’s go get this done, gentlemen.”
Grange opened the door and stood aside for Connell to go first. “You can ride with us.” The three filed out and pulled the door closed. None of them had seemed to notice that Emory hadn’t spoken a word since the mention of Alice.
But Hayes had.
Chapter 39
Looking like trick-or-treaters, Will and Norman arrived at their aunt and uncle’s house just as Lisa was about to leave for school.
“Ma’s sick,” Norman announced. “You gotta come home with us now.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
Bypassing the question, he asked their uncle for the loan of his pickup.
“How did you get here?” the man asked as he reluctantly handed over the keys.
“A friend dropped us.”
“You look awful,” Lisa said. “Aren’t you supposed to be in the hospital for several more days?”
“We’ll be okay. Ma might not.” Norman took her by the arm and roughly propelled her toward the truck parked in the driveway. Will was holding the passenger door for her. “You’re a freak show,” she said.
Glowering with more malevolence than usual, he boosted her in.
Once they were under way, she asked, “What’s wrong with Mother?”
“That’s for us to know and for you to shut up about,” Norman snarled as he wove through traffic. “You been talking way too much, little sister.”
“You’re lying, aren’t you? Let me out of here!” She made a grab for the steering wheel.
Will yanked her back and whacked the side of her head with the heel of his hand, then took a bone-crushing grip on both her wrists, pinning her hands together.
Norman said, “You try something like that again, and you’ll regret it.”
“Where are you taking me?”
“Just like we said. Home.”
“But there’s nothing wrong with Mother, is there?”
“Besides being old and ugly? No.”
Despite the Frankenstein apparatus, Will managed to snicker at his brother’s joke.
Lisa hated them, loathed them, and feared them. She knew from experience that she couldn’t get free of Will’s grasp until he was ready to release her. He had successfully held her down too many times to give her any hope of breaking away from him now. He was weakened by his injuries, but the feverish light in his eyes warned that he had a lot of fight left in him. And even if she could manage to free her hands, how would she get out of the truck?
Her only hope lay in the man who had promised to come to her aid if she ever needed him. All she had to do was wait until they got home and somehow get to a telephone.
But as they approached his cabin and she saw that yellow crime scene tape had been strung around the entire property, she gave a cry of dismay. “What happened?”
“Like we thought, he’s a fugitive. He gave you a phone number, right?”
“How’d you know?”
“Didn’t,” Norman said, flashing her his cagey grin. “But figured. Did he tell you to call him if—”
“If you tried to rape me.”
“Yeah, we know that’s what you’ve been blabbin’. Also know you had the backing of your lady doctor friend. But fuck her. She’s her old man’s problem to deal with.”
“She’s married?”
“Looks like, but not our business. It’s your tall, dark, and handsome we want.”
“What are you going to do?”
He steered into the drive of their house and brought the truck to a jarring stop. The chain was still wrapped around the tree. “Damn him, stole our dog, too,” Norman muttered as he cut the engine and pulled his cell phone from the pocket of his dirty jeans—the bloodstained ones in which he’d been admitted to the hospital.
“Here’s what’s gonna happen, little sister,” he said. “You’re gonna call your knight in shiny armor and tell him that we’ve brought you home and that you’re scared on account of we found out about the lies you’ve been spreading.”
“He knows they’re not lies.”
“No he don’t,” he retorted. “He’s just taking your word for it. But you tell him that we’re good and mad, and that we’ve threatened to make good your lies, and that you’d sooner kill yourself as have us…do that.”
Will grunted his approval of the script.
“And then what?” she asked.
“Then he’ll come running to your rescue. When he gets here, he’ll wish he’d never been born.” Norman grinned and brandished the phone. “What’s the number?”
She sneered. “When hell freezes over.”
Will grabbed her by the jaw, digging his thumb into one cheek and his fingers into the other. Although it cost him a grimace of pain from his broken ribs, Norman secured her hands. She bucked and twisted, but the harder she struggled, the tighter they held on. The pain to her jaw was so intense, tears came to her eyes.
“Hurts, don’t it?” Norman said.
He’d broken a sweat, and one of the raw patches on his face had begun to leak fresh blood. “You can imagine the suffering Will here’s gone through because of your friend. But he’s still got the strength to bend a skinny little whip like you. Eventually you’ll tell us what we want to know, so you’d just as well save yourself the discomfort.”
She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head.
After a moment, Norman said, “All right, then, we’ll try something else.”
The sinister quality of his smooth tone caused her to open her eyes. Her mother had come out onto the porch, a dishtowel slung over one shoulder, her holey cardigan crookedly buttoned, and Lisa’s spirit crumbled, because she knew she would do whatever they demanded.
“You make that call, little sister,” Norman whispered, “and it’d better be convincing. Or on this occasion we tie Ma to a chair and she watches.”
* * *
Hayes waited until the other three men had left, then he said, “You didn’t know it was Alice.”
Rather than feeling teary, Emory’s eyes felt exceptionally dry, as though she hadn’t even blinked since learning of her friend’s betrayal. “No.”
“You never suspected?”
“No.”
“You’re furious.”
“You’re damn right I am.” She came out of her chair, pushed it aside, and began pacing the area between the dresser and the foot of the bed. “I’m not jealous. Not even hurt. I’m livid.”
“She doesn’t deserve the energy that requires.”
“I’m more angry at myself than at her.”
“For what?”
“For being so naive.”
“Trusting.”
“Blind.”
“Can I throw out another adjective?”
She stopped pacing and looked at him. “What?”
She thought about that, then said, “Stop being right and let me rant.”
He motioned for her to continue.
“What really makes me angry is that I told her about my night with you. It was the most treasured secret I had, and I wanted to keep it all to myself. But I had to share the most personal aspects of it with her.” She explained why, then looked at him uneasily.
He met her gaze and said solemnly, “I hope you did me justice.”
It was such an unexpected reaction from him that she laughed. “Connell was wrong. You can joke.”
“Wasn’t joking.”
But he was, and she ate up the sight of his rare grin. He was right, Alice didn’t deserve the energy it took to be angry. Besides, her heart was too full of another emotion. Softly she said, “I think your friend Jack is onto us.”
“He’s not my friend, but he is onto us. When he came back with breakfast, he knew he’d interrupted either a fight or foreplay.”
“Was it a fight?”
“Sure as hell wasn’t foreplay.”
Knowing she was venturing into the deep end, she said, “We left that conversation unfinished, Hayes.”
Just like that, his mood shifted. He stood up and turned his back to her. “Better that way.”
“I don’t think so.”
“We’ll only go round and round on this issue, Doc. It’s pointless.”
She went to him and forced him to face her. “During one of our first conversations, I said, ‘There’s always a choice.’ And you corrected me. ‘Not always,’ you said. Remember?”
“Yeah.”
“You were right. You did what you had to do in Westboro because you had no choice.”
“What you’re saying then is that there are dirty jobs, but somebody has to do them.”
“Not exactly the phrasing I would use,” she said.
“But that’s basically where you’re coming from.”
“Where are you coming from?”
“Same damn place,” he said tightly. “But do you understand what that means? It means there’s a part of me that doesn’t mind being dirty. That scares me. It should scare you.”
She could tell by the implacability of his eyes that her arguments hadn’t made a dent. “You’re going to disappear again, aren’t you?”
“Why do you sound surprised? I told you I would.”
“You also told me that nothing has changed. You’re wrong, Hayes. Everything has changed. Damned if I’m going to let you deny it.”
She reached up, cupped the back of his neck, and pulled his head down so she could reach his lips. He resisted and tried to angle away until she traced the seam of his lips with her tongue, then he not only weakened to allow the kiss, he took command of it.
Suddenly the aggressor, his mouth slanted over hers and feasted on it. He put his hands under her ass and lifted her onto his thighs, then carried her as far as the nearest wall and pinned her there with his body. Her legs went around him, securing him in the cove of her thighs.
With no space between them to allow for thrusts, he applied a firm and insistent pressure that she met with yearning undulations. Their craving for each other was matched only by their frustration, hampered as they were by clothing, by time and place, and by circumstances.
Tearing his mouth free of hers, he buried his face in the ell of her shoulder and neck, his breath fast and hot against her skin. “Yeah, okay, something has changed. When I’m by myself in the night, I’ll want you.”
He dipped his head and found her nipple through her clothing, moving his mouth across it as he hoarsely whispered broken phrases. “Sleeping between your thighs, finding your breasts in the dark, listening to your breathing, and smelling your hair on my pillow. I’ll want all that, damn you. Damn you, Doc. You won’t be easy to let go.”
“Then stay with me.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
“I—”
His cell phone chirped. Once, twice, three times. Then it stopped.
They froze, panting, waiting, and when it began chirping again, she lowered her feet to the floor. He released her and stepped back, his hand going straight to his crotch and massaging it, cursing lavishly as he fished the phone from his jeans pocket.
He answered with, “Good timing, Jack.”
As he listened, his expression changed from supreme annoyance to alarm. “Lisa? Can you speak up?” He mouthed an obscenity. “Where? Is your mother there?” A moment later, he hissed another curse, then said, “Do what you can to stay away from them. I’m on my way.” He clicked off.
“What?”
“Her brothers picked her up and took her home. She’s locked herself in the bedroom, but they’re threatening to make good on the lies she’s been telling about them.”
Emory groaned. “Pauline?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“I’ll call the sheriff’s office.”
“Don’t,” he said. “They’d go, Lisa would accuse, the brothers would deny, they’d leave. She’d still be stuck there with them. No, this is one of those dirty jobs. I gotta finish it.”
“This is a matter for the authorities.”
He gave it a few second’s consideration. “All right. Give me ten minutes’ head start.”
“Hayes—”
“Ten minutes.” He moved toward the door.
“I’m going with you.”
“Hell you are. I can’t fight them and protect you at the same time.”
“You did before.”
“Not this time. Besides, you need to wait for Connell’s call about Jeff. Don’t forget to charge your phone.” He nodded toward a wall outlet where Connell’s charger was plugged in. “If Jack can’t reach me, he’ll call you. He has your number, right? Knight and Grange, too?”
“Yes, but—”
“No buts, Doc. Jeff’s secure, which is the only reason I’m leaving you alone. But my business right now is with Norman and Will.”
As he pulled open the door, she grabbed his arm. “You said you wouldn’t kill them.”
“They don’t know that.”
* * *
In a week full of surprises, Jeff received the most unpleasant one of all when he pulled open the door of the suite to find Alice standing on the threshold, fist raised, about to knock.
“Alice. How untimely. What are you doing here?”
“I thought we should talk.”
“Not now. I’m on my way out.”
“Now, Jeff.” She nudged him aside as she stepped into the entry. Noticing that he was already dressed for outdoors, she asked, “Where were you off to?”
Frowning, he checked his wristwatch. “I’ll give you five minutes. People are waiting for me.”
“What people?”
“Those hillbilly brothers.”
“The ones Emory tangled with?”
“Yes. That lot. Emory and Hayes Bannock are the sister’s champions. I thought if anything would lure them out, it would be she.”
“What are you talking about? What have you done?”
“Doesn’t matter. It’s Sir Bannock to the rescue.”
“What about Emory?”
“Hopefully she will be with her cavalier. If not, Norman assured me he’ll happily work on him until he gives over where he’s stashed her. Besides, I think it’s time I met her mystery man.”
“You described these brothers as reprobates.”
“They are.”
“But you’ve cooked up a scheme with them? Have you gone mad?”
“No.”
“I think you must have, Jeff. Whatever your plan is, it could go terribly wrong.”
“I’m prepared for that eventuality.”
He opened his coat and showed her an inside pocket. She gaped at him. “You have a gun? You?”
“I have a gun. Me.�
�� He removed the revolver from the pocket and balanced it in his palm. “Small but trusty.”
She walked over to the sofa and sat down, rubbing her temples as though they ached. “This is insane. If there’s any kind of fracas, Emory could be harmed or killed.”
“And whose fault would that be?” he said. “Her own. Why does she remain everyone’s cause célèbre? All of this, everything that’s happened, she brought upon herself.”
She looked at him, her expression wary and accusatory.
Abruptly he turned away. “I’ve got to go.”
“Where’s the charm on your zipper pull?”
He came back around. “What?”
“Last Friday night when you arrived at my house, you were wearing that jacket. I remarked on it, how attractive you looked in it. You bragged on it being new and told me how much it had set you back. Remember?”
“I’m not senile, Alice.”
“It had a recognizable designer logo dangling from the zipper. It’s not there now.”
“I lost it.”
“Where?”
“If I knew where, it wouldn’t be lost.” With impatience, he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Anything else on your mind this morning?”
“You and I. We’re over?”
“I thought I’d made that clear last night.”
“You did. But I wanted to hear it from you in person.”
“Consider it heard.” He motioned toward the door. “I’ll see you out, then I need to get on my way.”
She stood up shakily. “I’m not feeling well. I need the bathroom.”
He sighed. “Top of the stairs through the bedroom. Hurry, please.”
“Go,” she said tearfully. “I’ll be sure the door is locked when I leave.”
Chapter 40
She hadn’t actually promised Hayes a ten-minute head start before she called the sheriff’s office. He had just assumed she would comply with his request. As soon as he was gone, she plugged her dead cell phone into the charger.
She checked her contacts for Sam Knight’s number, but before she could send it through, her phone rang in her hand, startling her. Even more startling, her LED read: Alice.
With a resurgence of anger, she answered. “I know, Alice.”