Ultimate Kill (Book 1 Ultimate CORE Trilogy) (CORE Series)

by Kristine Mason

  “We need to break for commercial,” Manny announced. “Before we go, for those of you just tuning in, there’s been another explosion.”

  “Bombing,” the co-host corrected.

  “That hasn’t been confirmed. What has been is that the riverboat, Delta Rose, was carrying approximately one hundred and thirty passengers when it left the St. Louis dock at twelve-thirty p.m. Central Daylight Saving Time. The Delta Rose exploded thirty minutes later. We have no information on survivors at this time, but will update you as we get the latest news.”

  A commercial for Sahara Mart replaced Manny’s voice. The sandwich Vince had just consumed sat like a brick in his stomach. All he could think about was the guy from the office building.

  There’s a connection…the government knows it but isn’t telling the public. Another bomb is going to go off…

  He turned right and pulled into another parking lot to make his next delivery. The guy with the conspiracy theory was right. Now that he thought about it, maybe Manny’s co-host wasn’t that far off, either. Because bombs were going off every hour on the hour, there had to be a connection. Those government agencies the radio hosts were discussing had the people and the means to make that connection. He didn’t want martial law and would hate to see the U.S. shut down airports and such, but he, like probably everyone else, wanted answers. Starting with what the government was doing to put an end to the bombings? And who in the hell was behind it?

  *

  Norfolk, Virginia

  1:07 p.m. Eastern Daylight Saving Time

  Harrison stared at the back of Honey Badger’s head and pictured what a bullet in the middle of his skull would look like.

  Messy. Gory.

  Satisfying.

  He looked away and glanced down at the open laptop. The codes on the screen…hell, the whole damned system mocked him. He could hack into just about anything he’d tried. Although self-taught, he could probably teach kids coming out of college with a Computer Science degree a thing or two. But he couldn’t touch this laptop without permission. The irony was just too much. The laptop would give him access to the outside. His fingers itched to stroke the keyboard, to inform the world that the crazy badger behind the bombings was none other than billionaire business owner, Christian Hunnicutt. And no one would believe him. They especially wouldn’t believe that Hunnicutt killed innocent people to send a woman a message.

  He closed the laptop and caught a smear of dried blood he must have missed when he’d washed his hands earlier. Mickey’s blood. His stomach churned with revulsion. No matter how long he lived—and he doubted it wouldn’t be until he was old and grey—he’d never forget taking a knife to his twin. Carving into his flesh. The blood. Mickey’s cries.

  Harrison scrubbed a hand down his face and looked at Hunnicutt’s back again. When he’d been in the middle of slicing his brother and Ric’s cell phone had rung, the deranged dickhead could have told him to stop. But he hadn’t. Even when he knew the woman had received his message, he’d had Santiago keep a gun to Harrison’s head and had forced him to continue cutting Mickey.

  Fucking bastard.

  He’d never met anyone like Hunnicutt and hoped to God it stayed that way. The man didn’t care who he hurt. He also didn’t give a shit about anyone but himself and his agenda.

  Rose Wood.

  Harrison didn’t know anything about the woman, but if she was smart, she’d stay away. The image of the crudely carved letters on Mickey’s stomach ran front and center in his mind. Then again, maybe the woman didn’t have a choice. With a gun to his head, he’d sent the signal to each detonator and had caused death and destruction across the country. At this point, he didn’t care about his life or even Mickey’s. Whether by Hunnicutt’s orders or a federal judge’s, they were going to die either way. What he cared about was finding a way to make sure Hunnicutt didn’t get away with murder. Otherwise, he’d rather have Santiago slit his throat and put him out of his misery. Only now he had someone else to worry about.

  Rose Wood had served as Honey Badger’s catalyst. He’d used her name to incite every explosion, and she’d connected the dots and received Hunnicutt’s messages. Harrison might have pulled the trigger, but she was the reason why people were dead and dying. The guilt—he couldn’t worry about her guilt, he had enough of his own.

  “Ric,” Hunnicutt said, turning away from the TV. “Pull out your cell phone and Google Hazel Wood. I’m rather surprised her name wasn’t mentioned on the news.”

  Now that he knew the connection between the bombings, and morbidly curious as to how she fit into the Delta Rose riverboat explosion, Harrison asked, “Who’s Hazel Wood?”

  Hunnicutt flashed his teeth with a self-assured smile. “She’s a banjo player well known for her country and bluegrass music. Decades ago, she and her former band won a Grammy. Best album, I believe.”

  “Got it,” Ric said, scanning the small cell phone screen. “This isn’t good. Her performance on the Delta Rose was cancelled yesterday and replaced by a country trio. Apparently Hazel Wood is currently in the hospital recovering from an emergency appendectomy.”

  Hunnicutt narrowed his eyes and clenched his jaw. Harrison tensed and prepared for the worst. But, as if someone had flipped a switch in the badger’s brain, Hunnicutt relaxed and grinned. “I have to admit, this makes me look more ingenious than I already am. The Feds will be spinning their wheels trying to figure out where the Delta Rose ties in and, quite possibly, begin coming up with a new connection.”

  “Especially with the next explosion,” Ric added.

  Hunnicutt snapped his fingers. “Exactly.” He stepped over to the throne chair and sat at the edge. “This is good. Once Rose arrives, there will be no need to continue with the bombings.” He shrugged and leaned back. “We can leave and pretend none of this ever happened.”

  God, the man had no conscience. How could Hunnicutt pretend he hadn’t caused the deaths of hundreds of people? How could he pretend he hadn’t shot and stabbed Mickey, and forced Harrison to slice into his own brother’s flesh?

  “No excitement, Harrison?” Hunnicutt asked. “I’d think you’d be happy about this news.”

  “I am. I guess I’m just wondering what’s going to happen to me and Mickey.”

  He waved a hand. “You’ll be compensated for the job. And, of course, you’ll receive that special bonus I mentioned earlier.”

  “Thank you,” Harrison said when he really wanted to tell Hunnicutt to go fuck himself. He wasn’t stupid. There would be no compensation and no bonus. The man was a liar and a manipulator. He and Mickey knew too much, and besides, how in the hell would he explain Mickey’s injuries to an ER doctor? He wouldn’t, because the man wasn’t going to let them walk out of this warehouse alive.

  Knowing he and Mickey were running out of time, and not ready to die without killing Hunnicutt first, Harrison ran his hand along the closed laptop. “Does this mean we can leave now?”

  “No. You’ll stick around until she arrives.”

  “What if she lied to you and only told you what she thought you needed to hear?” Harrison asked, trying desperately to do the unthinkable. Stay in the warehouse for as long as possible. At this point, he doubted any government agency suspected Christian Hunnicutt was behind the bombings. The laptop was the only link back to Hunnicutt. If the explosion scheduled at four this afternoon went off, the program he’d uploaded back in Bloomington would give those agencies the link they’d need to arrest Hunnicutt. But no more bombings meant no chance of proving the billionaire had been terrorizing the country.

  Hunnicutt frowned. “That would be a very bad thing. But considering her concern for the masses, my gut tells me she’ll not disappoint. Still, I do think she should be punished, and thanks to you, I’ve come up with another brilliant idea.”

  Shit. The last time he’d inadvertently given the man a brilliant idea, Mickey had become a human notepad. “Sir, please. I don’t think Mickey can take—”

  Hunn
icutt chuckled and stroked the lion’s head on the throne chair’s armrest. “Ric, have I become that predictable?”

  Ric sent Hunnicutt a grin that bordered on malevolent. “Not at all. I think Harrison is worried about Mickey.”

  “As he should be.” Hunnicutt nodded. “But never fear, Harrison, your brother deserves time to rest and recoup.”

  Harrison didn’t relax. He might have only met the man today, but Honey Badger had proven time and again that he couldn’t be trusted.

  “No, my brilliant idea has nothing to do with Mickey, but Rose. If she’d come to me earlier, people wouldn’t have had to die. Now I think she needs to understand that I won’t be denied what belongs to me.”

  Against his better judgment, Harrison asked, “And how will you do that?”

  Hunnicutt smiled. “I’m going to keep blowing up people.”

  Harrison leaned into the sofa. He definitely deserved to burn in hell. He’d somehow talked Hunnicutt into continuing to detonate the explosives. He just prayed that when the Bloomington bomb went off, the death toll wouldn’t be catastrophic and instead, lead the authorities where they needed to be.

  Honey Badger’s den.

  Chapter 12

  Flight 9987, Somewhere over Ohio

  2:45 p.m. Eastern Daylight Saving Time

  JAKE PLACED A blanket over Naomi’s sleeping body, brushed a lock of hair off her cheek and released a sigh. Even asleep she looked tense, and he worried how the guilt would affect her down the road. Not the guilt over the lies she’d told him, those he understood—to a degree. But the deaths caused in her name.

  Rose Wood.

  She didn’t look like a “Rose.” Although he supposed if they’d met when she’d been Rose Wood, he wouldn’t be able to imagine her as Naomi McCall, either. Whatever way he considered it, the name change was kind of a mind fuck. He’d never been in a position where a name actually mattered. If he were to suddenly go from Jake Tyler to…Clyde Whitmore, did the name make him a different man?

  No. He’d still be the same person, but he did question how much Naomi had changed since leaving Rose behind. She obviously had trust issues. Sure, her reasons for not telling him about her past made sense to him. Anyone who had been close to Rose Wood was now dead. Still, there had to have been a part of her that had wanted to tell him the truth. If they’d stayed together, married and started a family, all of it would have been based on a lie.

  Before she’d become Naomi, had she been trusting and open? Maybe naïve? She must have been to end up associating with a man like Christian Hunnicutt. She had to have been around nineteen or twenty when she’d met Hunnicutt. Maybe her family had money and that’s how they’d met. Or maybe she’d grown up in a lower or middle class family and had been impressed by Hunnicutt’s wealth. Whatever the case, he couldn’t understand why a man in Hunnicutt’s position would risk everything for a woman he hadn’t seen in eight years.

  Then again, he hadn’t been able to get Naomi out of his head for the past five years, so maybe he had no room to judge. Only he wasn’t killing people to gain her attention.

  Careful not to disturb her and needing a change of scenery, he rose from the chair and made his way down the short aisle to where Dante sat. He looked over the other man’s shoulder and glanced down at the crossword puzzle Dante held. “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” Jake said, and took a seat across the aisle from Dante.

  “Are you planning on breaking into song?” Dante asked, keeping his head down and the pen poised over the puzzle.

  “Nope. That’s the answer to one down.”

  “No quite, genius. One down is a four letter word.”

  Jake shrugged. “Maybe it’ll fit in one across. But if you need four letter word, I can think of a few. Shit, damn, f—”

  Dante held up the puzzle and grinned. “While it’s obvious you have strong vocabulary skills, I’ll come up with my own answers, thanks.”

  “Anytime.”

  Dante looked over his shoulder to where Jake had left Naomi sleeping at the back of the jet. “She gonna be okay?”

  He dropped his head against the leather headrest. “She took that last bombing hard.”

  “Fifty-eight dead, twenty missing…she has every right.”

  Keeping his head against the seat, he looked to Dante. “I’m worried.”

  “The GPS—”

  “Can be blocked or lose satellite contact.” Jake glanced away and toward the ceiling of the cabin. “Hunnicutt is wealthy and unpredictable. That’s not a good combination.”

  “Don’t forget obsessed.”

  “I know, I was just thinking about that.”

  “Has she told you anything about her history with Hunnicutt?” Dante asked.

  He raised his head and swiveled in the seat. After making sure she still slept, he leaned across the aisle. “The only thing she told me was that he used to stalk her, and that the stalking turned violent. What I’m having a hard time wrapping my brain around is why Hunnicutt chose Naomi. With what he’s worth, he could have any woman.”

  “And how many years have you been holding out for Naomi?”

  Damn, was Dante a frickin’ mind reader? “I was just thinking about that, too. Get out of my head.”

  Dante’s mouth turned in a half smile. “Just stating the obvious. But the difference between you and Hunnicutt—”

  “I’d prefer not to be compared with a mass murderer, thanks.”

  “I’m not about to compare the two of you.” Dante set the puzzle and pen on the seat next to the window. “A few years ago, a woman comes to Ian and tells him she’s being stalked. The police can’t help her because she has no concrete evidence, and the little she did have wasn’t anything that would warrant an arrest.”

  “That sounds a little like what Naomi went through, only he did attack her. He and another guy broke into her apartment and threatened to kill her. Maybe if she’d gone to the police that night, we wouldn’t be in a jet heading to Norfolk.”

  “Well, that would clearly justify an arrest, but I can see why Naomi didn’t file a complaint. Hunnicutt’s family would have had him out of jail like that.” Dante snapped his fingers. “Based on what Hunnicutt’s done today, he would have gone after her again. Only he wouldn’t have just threatened her.” He stretched his legs into the aisle. “That stalking case I was telling you about, I met with a psychologist and got a crash course on the types of people who stalk. You have your psychotic and nonpsychotic.”

  “The man’s psychotic.”

  Dante half shrugged. “Maybe, but your idea of what’s psychotic probably doesn’t fit into the clinical term. And by clinical, I’m talking schizophrenia or obsessive compulsive personality disorder, or something along those lines. I’m no psychologist and I’ve never met the man, but I’m thinking he falls into the nonpsychotic category. Which, in my opinion, makes Hunnicutt more dangerous.”

  Jake stiffened. “Explain.”

  “Okay, back to the stalking case. The guy who’d been going after our client was a nonpsychotic stalker. The psychologist I worked with called him a rejected and resentful stalker. He wasn’t looking for intimacy, but because the client had broken up with him after just a month of dating, this guy felt the need to not only reverse her decision, but to avenge it.”

  “So what happened to the girl?”

  Dante looked away and rubbed the back of his neck. “She ended up in the hospital with a concussion, shattered jaw, broken ribs and punctured lung. I…ah…my head wasn’t on the case and I dropped the ball. She’s fine now, and her stalker won’t be given a parole hearing for another fifteen years. I still feel shitty about what happened to her.”

  Recalling what Rachel had told him about Dante, Jake suspected the man’s head hadn’t been on the case, but on his divorce. “No judgment is coming from my end.”

  Dante eyed him. “No offense, but I don’t care if you judge me or not.”

  Jake wasn’t offended. After spending six months working closely w
ith Dante, he’d learned the former SEAL didn’t give a shit about what anyone thought of him. To a degree, he could relate. What he did and how he did it was his business and his choices. Still, he cared what Naomi and his family thought of him, just as he’d cared what the men he’d fought side by side with during his tour in Iraq had thought of him. He wanted them to think he was a good man and a good soldier, and was proud that he’d been both. Only he wasn’t proud of how he’d treated Naomi earlier today. Instead of giving her the benefit of the doubt like he’d told himself he would, he’d hit her while she’d been down and was prepared to walk away from her when this was over. She’d spent her adult life running and grieving. She deserved to be safe and happy. And if she’d let him, he’d make sure she had both.

  “Anyway,” Dante continued, “what worries me about Hunnicutt is that he acts as if he has nothing to lose.”

  “Agreed. These bombings were calculated. The coordination he’d gone through to execute them so precisely had to take an enormous amount of time. During his press conference a reporter asked Hunnicutt about the possibility of running for Senate and later, for president. Why would he risk his global business and his political affiliations and aspirations over Naomi?”

  “And that’s what worries me. It’s like he thinks he’s untouchable.”

  “In a way, he’d be right. We know he’s setting off bombs and that he’s after Naomi, yet we can’t send in the FBI to stop him.” Which frustrated the hell out of him. “I say we go against Ian’s orders. I’m not interested in standing down and waiting for evidence or the proper channels to be engaged. I’m only interested in seeing Hunnicutt dead.”

  Dante’s forehead wrinkled as he frowned. “I have no problem with that. Except…if we kill him without having proof he’s behind the bombings, even in death he’ll have gotten away with murder.”