Deep Cover

by Rachel Butler

“Shouldn’t you ask Rob—”

  Aware that Yates was likely listening, she interrupted. “I’m supposed to be the boss here, remember? Let him pass.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the guard said grudgingly. “I’m opening the gate now.”

  18

  Damon was reaching for the doorknob into Robinette’s bedroom when the intercom buzzed. A glowing red light showed the panel’s location on the hall wall halfway between the living room and bedrooms, and a second light indicated the call was from the house, not the guard shack. It buzzed a second time, and sound came from the other side of the door—the squeak of springs, footsteps shuffling across the floor.

  Damon sank back into the shadows, his breathing tautly controlled. He imagined he could see the knob slowly turn, though in truth it was too dark. Shifting lightly on the balls of his feet, he watched as the door swung open, spilling moonlight into the hall. An instant later, Robinette walked out.

  He’d taken only a few steps toward the intercom when Damon struck. Swiftly, silently, he closed the distance, coming up close behind Robinette, grabbing hold of his chin with one hand, the back of his head with the other. He twisted hard, heard the surprised grunt, felt the sudden deadweight. Letting go, he stepped back. The prick fell to the floor in a heap, motionless, his head bent at an unnatural angle.

  The intercom buzzed once more, longer that time. Damon chuckled at the thought of Selena or one of the others, waiting for an answer that was never going to come.

  He went into Robinette’s bedroom, rifled through his belongings, and finally located his pistol, two extra clips, and a few hundred bucks. Leaving the shoulder holster behind, he tucked the pistol into his waistband, slid the rest into his pockets, and headed for the door.

  After three intercom calls brought no answer, Selena left the ballroom and took the stairs two at a time to the first floor, intending to rouse Gentry and let her alert the others. She entered the kitchen and approached the corridor that led to the servants’ quarters. Her eye caught movement and she became aware of a shadowy figure standing just inside the entry hall door. She stopped so abruptly that she practically stumbled, then slowly turned to face him.

  “Don’t bother them,” Yates said quietly, stepping into the light that came from above the sink. “This is between you and me.”

  The ice in his voice sent shivers dancing down Selena’s spine. It was in his face, as well. Coldness. Stillness. Rage.

  Regretfully she thought about the pistol and the switchblade in her room. She’d made the same mistake William had—feeling too safe in the house, putting too much faith in the alarm, the fence, the guards. In the end, William had paid for it with his life. She didn’t intend to follow him that far.

  “Let’s go back upstairs. We’ll have more privacy there.” Yates gestured toward the back stairs, and reluctantly she moved in that direction. Her steps were steady but slow as she climbed to the second floor. Was there anything in the second-floor hallway that she could use to defend herself? A table too bulky and heavy to move, holding a sixteenth-century Chinese vase and a collection of alabaster carvings, the largest barely enough to wrap her fingers around. Her best chance was to break away and make it to her room quickly enough to retrieve her weapons.

  Her muscles tensing, she took the last two steps at once, preparing to dash down the hall the instant her foot touched the floor. But before she could do more than that, Yates took her arm in a painful grip and steered her around the corner and onto the next flight of stairs. He didn’t release her until they were well inside the ballroom.

  There was precious little cover in the room—tables, chairs, the exercise equipment. No place to hide, and only a few free weights to use as a weapon. Even the telephone was too flimsy to do any serious damage. If Robinette hadn’t heard the intercom, or if Tony didn’t return soon, she would have only her wits to protect her.

  She moved to the far end of the table, then gestured toward a chair. “Have a seat.”

  “I’d rather stand.”

  So would she. It was easier to move, dive, kick. “What’s the trouble?”

  “You are.”

  For a moment, she remained blank, then as comprehension sank in, she folded her arms across her middle to contain the trembling deep inside. “You’ve decided you don’t want to continue our association.”

  “And here I thought you were too stupid to be believed.” He pulled a pistol from the back of his waistband and took aim on her. “Maybe it’s the late hour. Maybe they got complacent, or you just can’t get good help on the taxpayers’ dime, but your guys out there didn’t do a very thorough job of searching me. They patted me down, and they went through my car, but they missed this up in the undercarriage.”

  She glanced out the window toward the front gate, wishing she would see Tony’s car there, praying she wouldn’t. He expected to come back and find everything quiet. He wouldn’t be prepared to walk in on a murder attempt. “You’re planning to kill me. In my own house. With my people all over the place.”

  “Aw, come on, Selena. You’re about to die. Can’t you be honest now? Your people are fucking feds. You know it. I know it.”

  ...on the taxpayers’ dime... The breath froze in her lungs, and her shock must have shown on her face because he chuckled. “Oh, yeah. I know everything. They’re all feds, every goddamn one of ’em, except Long. Are you scamming him, too, or did he make a deal to save his own worthless hide?”

  She clasped her hands to stop their trembling. Running would merely result in her getting shot sooner and pretending innocence was likely to anger him further. Stalling seemed the best choice.

  “How long have you known?” She was surprised by her own calm when inside she felt nothing but panic. She’d discovered long ago that there was never a good time to die, but now, having finally found the father she’d dreamed of her entire life, was an especially bad time.

  “Not long enough. You fooled me.” His gaze narrowed. “I don’t like being fooled.”

  She shrugged dismissively. “They offered me a deal, and I took it. You would have done the same under the circumstances.”

  “You don’t have any idea what I would do under any circumstances.” His smile, so at odds with the anger and menace, made her skin crawl. “You don’t know a damn thing about me.”

  Another shrug. “I know enough. You’re dangerous. You have no regard for anyone’s life but your own.” Then she offered her own chilling smile. “I know you’ll never get away with killing me. The feds at the gate know I was alive and well before you got here. They’ll know you killed me.”

  “They would . . . if I was going to let them live.”

  Her mouth went dry, making it difficult to swallow. The guards wouldn’t be expecting trouble. It would be a simple matter for him to kill all of them. “What about the surveillance system? They have you on tape coming into the estate.”

  “It’s all hooked into the guard shack. A little C4 will take care of it.”

  Why was she so numb inside? It made sense that he wouldn’t hesitate to kill three people to cover up the murder of a fourth. Hadn’t he executed three of his own employees just days ago before torturing the fourth into a confession?

  She backed a few steps away from the worktable. The weight machine was six feet behind her, sleek steel and cables, of no help whatsoever, but on the floor behind it were the ten-pound dumbbells she sometimes used. It wasn’t much, but it was all she had.

  “How did you find out about the feds?” she asked, keeping the nervousness from her voice by sheer will.

  “I have my sources.”

  “What sources?” When his gaze narrowed, she shrugged as she eased a few inches closer to the weights. “You’re planning to kill me. What can it hurt to answer my questions?”

  He moved with her, maintaining the same distance, keeping the pistol trained center mass. “My sources are my sources. I have more secrets than you or the old man could even imagine. He thought he was so shit-hot, but he’s go
t nothing on me. I may not have been family to him, but I’m better at this business than he ever dreamed of being.”

  Her gaze locked on him, she continued to circle wide . . . until she tripped over the upturned corner of the mat underneath the equipment, stumbled, and knocked a metal chair to the floor. Yates responded with another chuckle. “Hell of a time to get clumsy, Selena. Not that it matters. Jamieson and Gentry are snoozing like babies. They’re not going to hear a thing.”

  As if in direct contradiction to his boast, the stairs creaked and a voice called her name. “Goddamn,” Yates muttered as relief swept over Selena. It died just as quickly, though, as it registered that the voice wasn’t Tony’s.

  “I heard something fall. Are you all ri—” Grant came to an abrupt stop at the top of the stairs. Robe belted around his waist, hair standing on end, he looked at her, then at Yates, and his brow wrinkled in confusion. Confusion, not fear. He stalked across the room toward Yates. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Put that damn thing away right now.”

  “Grant—” Yates echoed the name with her, and she broke off, shifting her gaze to him. He was staring at Grant with the same hatred Kathryn had shown her earlier. “What the hell are you doing here?” he snarled.

  “I’m here because of Kathryn. The police have been calling with details of how she tried to hire a hit man. She’d disappeared, she wasn’t answering her phone . . . of course I came.”

  “Then why the hell aren’t you with her, instead of here, in this house, with her?” His lip curled in a sneer, Yates jerked his head in Selena’s direction. “Get out of here, old man. Go tend to your wife. This has nothing to do with you.”

  “My son is pointing a gun at my daughter, and it has nothing to do with me?”

  Barely able to breathe, Selena staggered back a few steps until the cold steel of the gym stopped her. Sonny Yates was Grant and Kathryn Hamilton’s son? William’s nephew?

  Yates’s eyes opened wide with shock. “Daughter? What are you talking about, old man? You have no—” Then his gaze jerked to Selena and filled with disgust. “Her? She’s the one? Jesus, I’d heard talk from the servants, from Mama’s friends, that you’d had an affair, that you had a bastard running around somewhere, but her? Good God, Grant, why would you— How could you— Does Mama know?”

  “She does now.” Grant took a few steps toward him, stopping only when Yates swung the gun on him. He held out his hands in entreaty. “Put the gun away, Jefferson. Whatever you think you’re doing—”

  “I know what I’m doing. You’re the one who doesn’t have a fucking clue.”

  “Isn’t it enough that your mother’s in jail for trying to kill Selena? Do you—”

  “In jail?” Yates interrupted. “When was she arrested?”

  Selena finally found her voice. “Tonight. Here at the house.”

  Yates rounded on Grant. “What the hell are you doing here? Why haven’t you gotten her out? Why aren’t you taking care of her?”

  Grant’s expression turned as cold as Yates’s had been earlier. “She tried to kill my daughter, and she and her precious brother likely killed Amelia. She can rot in jail for all I care.”

  “You cold-hearted son of a bitch! Whatever she did, she did for you! She loves you, you worthless—” Yates lunged toward him, the pistol raised. Grant grabbed the gun, wrenched it free, and threw it across the room, then collapsed to the floor under the force of Yates’s punch. He lay there unmoving.

  Selena darted toward the weapon as it skittered across the highly polished floor. Before she’d covered more than a few yards, Yates hit her from behind, knocking the wind from her lungs with a whoosh as she crashed onto the floor. Frantically, she drove her elbow straight back, earning a grunt from him and enough easing of his weight that she was able to turn over. She bucked her hips but was unable to unseat him, brought her knee up into the middle of his back, and delivered a sharp chop across his throat. When he fell back, she scrambled away, but he grabbed her ankle in a vicious grip. Cursing her bare feet, she kicked at him with her other foot but was unable to do enough damage until she connected with his chin, snapping his head back.

  He loosened his hold, and she jerked free and jumped to her feet, making another frantic bid to reach the pistol. He grabbed a handful of her clothing, swung her around, then gave her a shove in the opposite direction. Unable to catch her balance, she landed on the mat, her head hitting the leg of the exercise equipment with a sickening thud. Her vision turned blurry, and bile rose from her stomach, burning her throat. Using a handful of her hair, he flipped her over and delivered a hail of blows, smashing his fist into her face, her ribs, her abdomen. Agony flashed red and black against her closed eyelids. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t feel anything but pain.

  She tried to raise her knee but couldn’t. Shoving her hand between their bodies, she gave his testicles a brutal twist, bringing an outraged howl from him. “You fucking bitch,” he panted. “Fuck Grant”—he wrapped his hands around her throat—“and his nigger whore”—and squeezed—“and Henry, and fuck you—”

  Desperate for air, she clawed his fingers, his throat, his face. When she drew blood, he howled again and let go to punch her in the ribs again. A bone cracked as red-hot misery raced through her. He hit her again, and everything went black. She was going to pass out, and he would be free to kill her.

  Her arm trembled and her fingers were having difficulty responding to her brain’s woozy commands. Once again she scratched at his face before finding his eye. When she gouged one nail deep into it, he screamed obscenities as blood began oozing down his cheek. Groping blindly, he grabbed one of the dumbbells and raised it in both hands above his head. “You goddamn bitch,” he whispered, his voice raw and trembling. “I’m going to kill—”

  A gunshot echoed through the room, taking off a good portion of Yates’s head. Blood and tissue splattered the wall, the floor, and Selena as the weight slipped from his hand and clattered harmlessly to the floor. He slumped back, dead.

  She slowly eased into a sitting position, supporting herself on her elbows, trying not to gasp for breath but unable to take it in any other way. Her legs were trapped under Yates’s lower body, and she couldn’t find the energy, or the pain tolerance, to wiggle free.

  Footsteps approached, quiet on the wood floor, then a slim figure dressed in black knelt beside her. A gloved hand tugged off the balaclava, and blond hair fell to brush the black shirt. “Let me help you,” Charlize Pawley said, sliding her arm around Selena’s shoulders, gently pulling her free, then helping her to the nearest seat, the bench on the weight machine.

  Her vision still blurry around the edges, Selena stared at her. “Y-you... you . . . why?”

  Charlize crouched in front of her. “I worked for William a long time,” she said simply.

  “You’re J.T.”

  Another nod. “Short for John Turner. My father. He was William’s hitter. When he got sick and knew he wasn’t going to be around to take care of me much longer, he trained me to take over, and when he died, I did.”

  “You’re a hit man.”

  Charlize’s smile was brief. “I prefer hit woman. Or just plain hitter. I was seventeen when I carried out my first job. Truthfully, I prefer the restaurant business, but I owed William a lot.”

  “You were watching Yates?”

  Picking up a towel draped over the weight machine’s cross bar, Charlize gently dabbed at the blood flowing from Selena’s temple. “William never trusted anyone. Someone’s watching everyone. Since my official work for him was sporadic, I kept an eye on Sonny the rest of the time.”

  “Did William know . . .” Selena closed her eyes for a moment. Everything hurt so bad—shades of her childhood— that she was having trouble putting questions together. “Did he know Sonny was really Jefferson?”

  “No. I didn’t, either, until tonight. Knowing Sonny, I’d say it was enough for him to know that he was fooling his uncle. William didn’t have
to know, too.”

  Just like William—the love of secrets and the satisfaction in knowing them even if no one else did.

  Somewhere in the distance, a door closed. Tony arriving from his search of Kathryn Hamilton’s suite? One of the agents awakened by the gunshot?

  Charlize’s voice turned grim, insistent. “Listen to me, Selena. This is Sonny’s gun, right? He brought two with him. You were able to relieve him of this one and you shot him with it in self-defense. Understand?”

  Selena stared at the pistol Charlize pressed into her hand, her vision still unfocused, and repeated the words to fix them in her head. “Sonny’s gun . . . disarmed him . . . self-defense.”

  With an approving nod, Charlize wrapped Selena’s fingers around the grips, pointed the pistol in Sonny’s direction, and squeezed off one shot into the wall a few feet above his body. The sound made her flinch.

  Then the blonde smiled. “I’ve got to go. I’m more used to you free than locked up.”

  When she would have pulled away, Selena tightened her grip on her hand. “Thank you.”

  Charlize’s only response was a nod. Noiselessly, she crossed the ballroom, pulling on the balaclava as she went. Selena didn’t worry about how she would get out of the house and off the grounds; she’d done it a time or two herself without getting caught, and she was nowhere near as experienced as Charlize.

  Nowhere near as cold, either, she added as her gaze skimmed over Yates’s body, then quickly away. Charlize and Yates had been lovers, yet she had killed him without a qualm. Selena would die before killing Tony, and had come precariously close to proving it a few weeks ago.

  Footsteps sounded on the stairs, and Selena dragged her head up enough to watch as Gentry came into view, gun drawn. The agent looked at Grant, still out cold on the floor, at Yates, then at Selena, and she smiled. “You are hell on the bad guys,” she said, a hint of admiration in her voice. She crossed the room to bend over Yates for a moment. Satisfied that he was dead, she straightened. “Where’s his weapon?”

  Selena nodded toward the gun on the floor.