“Doesn't it bother you that she's up there all by herself?”
John shrugged. “She's tough. She can handle herself.”
“I suppose, and Roxy's got her back, that must be a comfort.”
That got a reaction. John's grip on the steering wheel tightened.
“If she doesn't get an answer we're going to run out of time,” Charlie said, more to himself than to John.
“You should let her use her powers then.”
“I'm not her pimp.”
“You're not her boss either,” John said. “Or mine.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
John was silent.
“What's this about? Is it Roxy, is that why you're being such an ass?”
Again John said nothing.
“You know we're better with him on our side.”
“I know he's a complication we don't need.” John nodded at the hospital entrance. “Speaking of complications we don't need.” He ducked as the windscreen shattered.
A wave of people swirled away from the shot. They were screaming and yelling. Charlie brushed glass from his hair and shirt. There was a hole in the middle of the backseat, spewing filling foam into the foot-well. He looked up at Jess pointing a pink handgun at his head.
“Seriously,” John said. “Pink? You're screwing a girl that carries a pink handgun?” He lifted his head up, already reaching for his own gun. His black gun.
“Hold on,” Charlie said and dared to open the door.
“Stop right there!” Jess screamed. “I know what you are.”
There were still enough rubbernecks around for that comment to ripple across them. Charlie stayed behind the door, trying to ignore the cerise barrel trembling in his direction.
“Let's talk about this.”
“You murderer!”
He frowned. Murderer. What the hell was she talking about?
“Charlie,” John hissed in warning.
He was right. They were right underneath their last mark. There wasn't time to screw around shouting with a crazy woman who matched her weapon with her clutch bag. Rachel and Roxy were inside and the last thing they needed was a chain reaction putting them in danger.
He gave John a nod and dared to step out of the cover of the car.
“Jess, I don't know what you are talking about. Put the gun down or someone is going to get hurt.”
“I know what you are!” she yelled again. “Reacher!”
There it was. A death sentence. The word echoed across the surrounding buildings and people started to run, trading places with other people desperate to see what a Reacher would do with a gun pointed at him. In seconds the police would arrive. And Rachel was still inside. If she came out at the wrong time. If there was crossfire. This was a time bomb and he had to diffuse it now.
“Jess,” he said softly, holding his hands up in the air. “You don't know how to use that thing, okay. There are people around you, innocent people who could get hurt.”
He was less than six feet away. Even with her eyes closed she wouldn't miss him. Her hands tightened around the gun, but it was clear she didn't want to shoot. Mascara streaked tears started to run down her face. She didn't see John appear behind her, not until he had his hands around her face. She tried to scream but her mouth was covered. He hauled her into the car like she was weightless. Charlie plucked the gun from her useless hands as she went limp.
He got in the back of the car as John sped off. The commotion was already drawing more attention. John pulled into traffic as three police cars screeched by.
“What do we do with her?” John said and his meaning was implied in his tone. He wanted Jess out of the way for good.
“Take her home,” Charlie said. “Take the next right.”
“She pulled a gun on us,” John grumbled under his breath.
“We're not killing her!” he ordered, and if that made him boss then John would just have to deal with it.
42
She raced back to Roxy with only one thing she knew for certain – they could not blackmail Jan Curtis. He wasn't a bad guy and she couldn't punish him for doing what she would do herself. He was cracking under the pressure and if they put any more on him people would die – innocent people. They were going to have to do it another way.
“I know what Charlie is going to say,” she told Roxy frantically, trying to make him understand. “But this man is saving lives, we can't stop that.”
“It doesn't look like we're going to be the ones doing anything if that whore has her way.”
“Charlie's sleeping with her, maybe he can talk some sense into her,” Rachel said, not that she believed it was possible - not now.
“He couldn't even screw some sense into her.” Roxy sat back on his bed and started to fidget, twisting his hands together. Rachel glared at him. He was holding something back.
“What is it?”
“Promise you won't overreact.”
“What have you done?”
“Done? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
“Roxy?” she growled.
“I'll tell you if you promise me you won't go mad, or tell John.”
“I'll tell John you're holding something back if you don't bloody tell me now!”
He sighed dramatically. “Okay. Riva Morris paid me a visit a few days ago.”
“You son–of–a…” She wanted to hit him.
“You promised you wouldn't overreact!”
“You double-crossed us! Again! I'm going to bloody kill you. And then I'm going to bring you back and call John and John's going to kill you.”
“That is overreacting.” He grabbed her. “I haven't sold you out okay. I wouldn't. Not again, I swear,” he added. “Riva came to me, she wanted me to arrange some alone time between the two of you, something about going through your sister's things. I told her I'd think about it and we had a very informal handshake. That's all and I haven't spoken to her since.”
“I don't believe you.”
“Honey, if I was going to double cross you I would not be sowing the seeds of mistrust this late in the game I promise you.”
“I'm calling John.”
“Wait. I can help you.”
“Help us? You think we'd fall for that again?”
“Kiss me.”
“What!”
“You want to know if I'm lying, kiss me. That's why Charlie teamed us together.”
“So it's okay to kiss you just not Jan.”
He let out a nervous laugh. “I promise I won't fall in love with you. Put your mind at ease and kiss me.” He pursed his lips.
Kissing Roxy wasn't an alien thought, but it was one that scared the hell out of her. His thick lips beckoned her and she couldn't help being tempted. Would it complicate things? No, this was work not pleasure. She pressed her lips against his. Her mind switched off and she moved into his. His thoughts were like his flat, chaotic and filthy. There were images everywhere. Scenes playing out, feelings personified in weird gestures. He was a small boy, a grown man. Brave, afraid, confident, uncertain. The walls of his mind projected images over every surface and genuine thought. It was like stumbling into an orgy with a hundred Roxy's and a million fantasies. Charlie's face, John's face, her face, all flashed up with a regularity none of them would be comfortable with. She pushed past them, fixing on the moment he was trying to bring to the front of his head.
There was Riva. He didn't want to work with her, not really. He wanted to redeem himself. He wanted Charlie and John to forgive him. She saw the whole thing. He was in bed, trying to get information out of a nurse. Then Riva arrived and he was afraid. She placed her hand under the bed covers and their conversation was blurred. Riva had a hold on him, but so did Rachel.
Rachel pulled away feeling more flustered than she was comfortable with. She turned away. “That's what you call an informal handshake?”
“So you saw everything right?”
“And some. You are one dirty son of a bitch.
”
He smirked at that. “I know. And I know what to do. Leave it to me.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Think on my feet. Don't worry this is going to be a piece of cake.”
“We don't have time to mess about.”
“More's the pity. I'll call you when it's done. You can count on me, in a couple of hours this job will be over.”
She recognised the spring in his step. He danced like that a few hours before he betrayed her. She ran her tongue over her lip. He didn't intend to betray them, but that didn't mean he wouldn't. She couldn't take any risks.
43
Charlie rooted around in Jess' bag for her keys. He tipped out the contents, sifted through lipstick, condoms, and a jar of blue crystals. It was a medicine jar, but unmarked. He picked it up, his fingers tingling in anticipation. Sapphire. The word rang in his ears. He could remember it now. She put it in the drink. The drink he took. A cold dread settled on him. He'd fallen off the wagon and he didn't even realise it.
“Which house?”
Charlie stuffed everything back in the bag. “What?”
“I said which house?”
“The one on the end.” Charlie grabbed the keys and Jess started to come around. “Quick let's get her inside.”
They carried her out of the car as though she was drunk, hoping that this was a regular neighbourhood scene for the party girl. Charlie just managed to get her into the lounge when she broke free of him.
“Get off me! Get off me! I'll scream!”
John was behind them. He closed the front door and guarded the exit with annoyance. “Scream as much as you want nobody is going to hear you.”
Charlie thumped his brother in the arm. “That's not helping.” Then he grabbed Jess' hands, just forcibly enough to hold her still and stop her hitting him. “We're not going to hurt you. I promise. Nothing is going to happen to you.”
“You're Reachers.”
“That doesn't mean we're going to hurt you.”
“You killed those girls. You killed my friend!”
So that was what this was about. It made sense now. “We haven't killed anyone.”
John coughed behind him and Charlie was so close to punching him in the face this time his hand clenched. “We haven't killed any girls. We weren't even in London when the first murders happened. I swear to you. We're not saints, but we do not strangle women for kicks.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
“Exactly what I told you. We're working a job.”
That wasn't enough for her. She glared at him and it was John who caved.
“We're fixing the border control.”
“Not this again.”
“Your husband had a vote in who gets to take it over, we were trying to find blackmail material to make sure he votes the right way. And we found a lot more than we bargained for, but that is where our involvement with those dead girls ends,” Charlie added.
“The police showed me your picture. And his. I think.”
Charlie glanced at his brother. The police were closing in. First it was the Voice HQ and now Jess. They were hunting the killer and finding John and Charlie instead. This was bad. Especially when Charlie's smiling face was videoed all over Colonel Moore's murder scene. “When did they show you my picture?”
“When I took in the computer. The murders are being committed by a Reacher. They asked me if Harvey was a Reacher and I didn't know. And then they asked about you.”
John sucked in the air around him and Charlie suddenly felt chilled.
“The cops are hunting us,” John said.
The cops were always hunting them, but this was the closest they had come in a long time.
“What did you tell them?” John was livid. He was even scaring Charlie.
Jess cowered back. Her mouth opened but she couldn't coax an answer out.
“Did you tell them that you knew me?” Charlie said as softly as he could.
She shook her head and at that moment he could have kissed her.
“No. But if it isn't you, who is it? It can't be Harvey. He hated Reachers.”
“Because he was one,” John stated in irritation.
“He didn't have powers. I'm sure he didn't. If Harvey had powers he would have used them all the time. Harvey was a show off.”
“Maybe he didn't know what he was,” Charlie reasoned. “A lot of people are convinced they are Reachers when they're not. There's no reason to say it can't work the other way around.”
“They said that too. That maybe he was suppressing his powers. But if that was the case it could be anybody.”
“Nobody else has pictures of dead girls on their computer,” John growled. “Get it into your thick bimbo head: he's a Reacher!” Before he could really lose his temper his phone started ringing. It was Rachel.
He answered it in the kitchen while Charlie focused on diffusing Jess. “Listen it doesn't matter what he is, he killed those girls. You know in your heart what is really going on.”
“I can't handle this. I need to take the edge off.”
“No, you don't,” he said trying to hold her hand. “Jess, it's okay.”
“This is too much. I'm fucking freaking out. Charlie, give me my bag.”
“No.”
John reappeared just in time. “Are you surprised to learn we have a problem, with the patient?”
Charlie felt his stomach lurch. This was the last thing they needed. “Is Rachel okay?”
“She's fine but she needs us back.”
Jess grabbed his hand. “You can't leave me?”
“Of course he fucking can,” John snapped. “You were going to shoot him.”
“Please, Charlie.” Her eyes pleaded with him. She was a mess and Charlie was starting to identify with her. There was too much going on, too many pieces falling apart at once.
“I'm scared,” she said and if he had been able to leave before he couldn't now.
“You go,” he said and Jess smiled at him. He didn't dare look at John.
“She just shot at us and you're staying with her? Are you out of your fucking mind?”
“John,” Charlie warned.
“Remember what happened with the last woman you got with?”
Charlie lashed around. “Fuck you! You're an asshole. You don't bring that up now!”
John shook his head. “We'll see you over the border, after it's all gone to shit and we've cleaned it up.” He left, but the tension remained.
John wasn't like Charlie. He couldn't empathise. He didn't see how terrified Jess was. John was a natural predator, he had never been scared or vulnerable. But Charlie had and there was no way he could just walk away and pretend there was nothing between them.
“What happened with the last woman?” Jess asked when they were alone.
Charlie sighed. There was no point lying. “She murdered my wife and stabbed me in the back, literally.” They sat together on the sofa, Charlie was doing his best to calm her. “I figure you've already tried to kill me and I no longer have a wife. What's the worst that can happen?”
She shifted uncomfortably and that made him concerned.
“What is it?”
“They say Reachers are attracted to each other,” she murmured. “Like, for no reason.”
He answered cautiously, “It's instinctive. Even when we don't like each other.”
“You're not my type. Not even close.”
He scowled, it wasn't the worst thing a woman had said to him, but it still stung.
“And I hated those girls. I knew them all, Charlie. Not just my friend. Keira, Lisa. I knew all of them. I hated them and they hated me because I got out of the life. When they died I wasn't even upset. Even Clare, she was my friend and I was a bitch to her.”
“What are you saying?”
“I really need to clear my head. Where's my bag?”
“Jess, you need to stay sober.”
“What I need is to take the edge off.” She got
the bag herself and rattled her bottle of cobalt crystals unashamedly. She slipped one under her tongue and settled back into the sofa. The straps of her dress slipped over her shoulders as she slumped further down. The lull lasted only a few seconds and then she sat back up, more amiable and relaxed.
“That's better. Your friend is a real ass.”
“My brother,” Charlie corrected. He left her comments about him being an ass, most of the time John was. “You were trying to tell me something.”
“I know. I think I killed those girls.” She started to laugh. “I think it was me.”
“That's crazy. You're not a Reacher.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“I'd know.”
“What if I didn't even know? They said that I wouldn't know. Can you really be sure?”
He hoped he could. He concentrated on their entwined hands. It didn't feel like he was with Rachel, or even with Sol. But there was something there. It felt dangerous.
“If it's me…”
“You really think that you could kill those women?”
She paused. “Do you?”
“No, I don't.”
“Did you think that other woman would kill your wife?”
He conceded that point at least.
“What did it feel like when you lost your wife?”
“It felt like death. An endless, empty death that I have to live over and over.”
“And that's what got you hooked the first time.” She toyed with the bottle of Sapphire. Her dress slipped lower and lower. She didn't seem concerned.
“Don't you want one final taste? We didn't even do it properly before.”
He should have said no, but his eyes were distracted by the curve of her neck and the drugs in her hands.
“I should go after my brother.”
“You're tempted aren't you?”
“I'm always tempted, I'm an addict.”
“What would it do, if you took just one crystal?”
“I don't know.”
“What did it do before?” Her eyes sparkled mischievously.
Charlie turned away. “Nothing.”
“See. Stay, we can relax together.”
Border Lines (Reachers Book 2) Page 20