Behind Closed Doors (The Mccloud Series Book 1)

by Shannon McKenna

  Another blast. He jerked, clutching his thigh and thudded facedown to the floor.

  No air. Her lungs were a vacuum. Her heart a burning coal. And the earth was dragging Victor down with a force she could not resist.

  Too late. He’d failed, he’d missed. Raine was sliding down the wall behind Lazar and the world had ended, here and now. He skidded to a stop and dropped to his knees in the spreading pool of blood. “Are you shot?” he demanded.

  She stared up at him, uncomprehending. He tried to pull Lazar’s body away from her so he could see how badly she was hurt.

  “No!” Her arms tightened around the wounded man.

  “I need to see if you’re hurt, damn it!”

  She shook her head. “He took the bullet for me,” she whispered.

  Seth stared down into Lazar’s face. His lips were blue. His eyes glittered, still sharp, still conscious. Lazar’s lips twitched, but Seth couldn’t hear him. He leaned closer. “What?” he snarled.

  “You were supposed to protect her,” Victor exhaled.

  A harsh laugh burst out of him. “I tried. She’s hard to protect.”

  “Try harder,” Victor said. “Idiot.” He coughed. Blood bubbled from his lips.

  “Don’t, please, Victor.” Raine’s voice was shaking. “Try not to move. “We’ll get help, and—”

  “Shhh, Katya. Mackey…” Victor’s eyes beckoned him.

  He didn’t understand why he should bother listening to the dying words of one of Jesse’s murderers. But the man had taken a bullet for Raine. He leaned forward again.

  “Strength is worthless if you have nothing to protect with it.” Victor’s voice was a wispy thread of sound.

  Seth stared into the dying man’s eyes and saw in them all the bleak, empty cold that was waiting for him. He recoiled, enraged at the sheer, fucking nerve of the man.

  “Pearls of wisdom from a murderer. Thanks, Lazar. I’ll have that printed up on my letterhead. Better yet, I’ll have it inscribed on your tombstone. You know what? This is a better death than you deserve.”

  He just managed to catch the faint, amused smile on Lazar’s lips before Raine shoved him away. “Get away from him,” she hissed.

  He watched her bend over the dying man, murmuring something. Long, tangled locks of her pale hair straggled through his blood. She cried without making a sound, tears streaking through the blood and grime smeared on her face.

  Lazar’s eyes grew glassy and fixed.

  Novak lay facedown, twisted and sprawled across the floor like a pile of discarded, bloodstained clothing.

  Seth felt neither triumph, nor satisfaction, nor peace.

  He felt nothing at all.

  Raine stared into Victor’s face, using the old eye spell. If she didn’t blink, he couldn’t slip away from her. She’d only just found him.

  But she was crying too hard. She couldn’t help but blink. He was slipping away anyway, and no child’s spell could hold him. She touched his face, a timid caress that left a smear of his own blood across his high, sharp cheekbone. “I guessed your password,” she whispered. “That was how I found you.”

  “Clever girl.” She could barely hear him. “You didn’t guess the password. You are the password.”

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t give you what you want.”

  She saw the barest twitch of the corners of his mouth. “Yes, you did. Peter can forgive me now. If you can.” His eyes bored into hers.

  She gazed back, and nodded. “I can,” she said simply.

  There were no more secrets or lies between them, just the stately finality of dying, like a boat drifting out into a vast emptiness.

  It was like her dreams, and yet different. This time, when the boat drifted away, she didn’t panic or blubber or beg to be taken along.

  She just held Victor’s limp body in her arms, let the tears flow, and quietly watched it go.

  Seth was crashing. No way to halt the downward trajectory. Lights flashing, people talking in loud voices, faceless uniforms asking him questions on which he couldn’t focus enough to answer. The McClouds were dealing with it, and he was numbly grateful to them.

  At some point, he realized that Novak wasn’t dead. Close to it, from the looks of him, but medics were sticking tubes into him. They wouldn’t bother to do so if he were a corpse.

  Great. He’d failed at that, too. Jesse was still not avenged.

  But the part of him that cared was buried under a hundred tons of broken rock. He sat on the bloodstained floor and watched Raine cry. There was a yawning expanse between them. Huge and echoing and endless. She was still crying as they zipped Victor into a black body bag, and he couldn’t figure out why. The guy was an icy-hearted murderer who had put out a contract on her father and ruined her life. It baffled him so much he had to stumble closer and ask her. “Why?”

  She scrubbed at her wet eyes with grimy hands. “Why what?”

  “Why are you crying for the man who killed your father?”

  The medic was fussing at her, but Raine ignored him. The two of them were utterly elsewhere, locked in a glass bell of frigid silence. Her wet eyes glittered at him with an unearthly silver brilliance.

  “He did not kill my father,” she said. “He is my father. I’ll grieve for him if I damn well please.”

  She reached inside his jacket, rummaging around. He stared down, numb and unresisting. Whatever. She could shoot him or stab him if she pleased. He didn’t have the energy to knock her hand away.

  Her grubby hand emerged, clutching the glittering opal pendant. “I’ll keep this,” she said. “As a memento of my father.”

  He stared down at the blue-green fire that flashed beneath the milky surface of the stone. “That was how they found us,” he said.

  She nodded and stuffed the necklace into her pocket. “I didn’t plant it on purpose. And I followed you because I wanted to warn you. Of course you’ll never believe me. Really, I don’t know why I bother.”

  He shook his head. “Raine—”

  “Believe what you want. I no longer care what you think,” she said. “You’re a cold, vicious bastard, but I’m glad you’re not dead. I wouldn’t want that on my conscience, along with everything else.”

  The medic draped a blanket around her shoulders and led her away. She didn’t look back at him.

  They must have given her a shot of something really strong, because everything floated away, leaving her all alone in the white mist. Once she thought she saw Seth, but that had to be a dream, because Victor and Peter were standing on either side of him. She reached out, but her hand fell short and flopped down onto the sheet, limp and useless. “Are we both dead then?” she asked him.

  “No,” he answered. His eyes looked hollow and sad.

  She tried to capture him with the eye spell, as always, but her eyes wouldn’t stay open, and it was she who was floating away, not him. She lunged for him, trying to lasso him with words. “I love you. Don’t die.”

  “I won’t,” he said. She drifted back out into the white mist, clutching that promise like a life raft.

  The next time she woke, she knew she wasn’t dead, because her mother was sitting by the bed. Her expression was that of a cat lying in wait outside a mousehole. Nothing was more earthly and concrete than Alix when she had that look on her face.

  “It’s about time you woke up, Lorraine. You scared me half to death. You look terrible. Black eyes, scrapes, cuts, sprains, cracked ribs, a dislocated shoulder, torn cartilage. You are a mess. You just had to run out and do every single thing I’ve been telling you not to do your whole life! Contrary. Just like your father.”

  “Which one?” she whispered.

  Raine drifted away before she could enjoy Alix’s shocked expression.

  Chapter 28

  He ran the clip back, and played it again.

  It was from the Colbit that overlooked the floating dock at Stone Island. He’d sneaked out and collected this batch last night. Ninety-six hours of footage. He’d splic
ed all the pieces with Raine in them into a montage. This six-minute clip was his favorite bit.

  She emerged from the trees and walked slowly down onto the dock. The bruises on her face were almost gone. Her hair flowed long and loose around her body. She was wearing a soft, clingy white shirt. No bra, he noticed. Her nipples jutted out. She needed a jacket. It bothered him that she didn’t think to put one on. She never took care of herself. If he were with her, he would insist on a jacket.

  A gust of wind blew her hair away from her face. She wrapped her arms around herself and stared out over the water, her face faraway. Like she was waiting for something. Or someone.

  He heard a car coming up the driveway. He leaned out the open door of the Chevy and peered down the road. It was Connor’s car. He clicked away the video clip and snapped the laptop shut. Comments from Connor about his obsessive pastime were the last thing he needed.

  Connor got out of his car and limped over to the Chevy. He leaned on his cane and nodded. “Hey.”

  “What’s up?” Seth was having a hard time feigning interest in the mopping-up details, but he tried, out of politeness.

  “I just got a call from Nick, down at the Cave. Novak’s going to make it. Sean’s shot to the chest just hit Kevlar. Paranoid bastard. And your shot to the thigh barely missed the femoral artery. Bummer.”

  Seth grunted in disgust. “I should have aimed for his head.”

  “Console yourself with the fact that he lost a few more fingers on his left hand, thanks to you. That’s going to piss him off no end, once he comes to his senses.”

  “How about Riggs?”

  “In jail, licking his wounds. No bail.”

  “And his daughter?”

  Connor’s face tightened. “Erin’s fine. She hates my guts, of course, but that’s to be expected. She told me that Georg never touched her, but I rearranged his face and various other parts of his body anyhow, just for thinking about it. He’ll be pissing blood for a while yet.” His lips curved in a small, grim smile. “The big house should be a lot of fun for a pretty yellow-haired boy like him.”

  Seth took hold of Connor’s cane, and jerked it out of his hand. “Do you use this thing for show, to get workman’s comp, or do you just get off on carrying around an extra weapon?”

  Connor yanked the cane back and twirled it with eye-blurring speed. “You can do a lot of damage with this baby if you’re quick.”

  A deer wandered through the meadow, about twenty yards away from them. They watched it stroll by, calm and unconcerned. The world went on. Jesse was still dead. Novak was still alive. The deer munched idly on the yellowed tips of the meadow grass.

  The screen door slammed. The buck sprang up and bounded into the trees, swift and silent. Sean sauntered over to the Chevy. “Hi, Connor. Yo, Seth, your buddy Kearn just called, for the sixth time. Call him back, for fuck’s sake. He’s worried about you.”

  “He’ll live. Besides, I’m leaving. I’ll talk to him when I get home.”

  “Sure you will. You’ve been saying that for eight days. Not that it’s a problem. Stay as long as you like.” Sean grinned and stuck his hands in his pockets. “As long as it takes to work up the nerve to go get her.”

  Seth slanted him a stare that made most people start stammering and backing away. It had no effect upon Sean. He just flashed his dimples and waited.

  “Mind your business, Sean,” Connor said.

  “I’ve been minding my business all week. I’m bored,” Sean said cheerfully. “What’s the hold-up? I’d be prostrated in front of that dynamite babe with my tongue rolled out like a red carpet if I were you.”

  Seth thought of Raine’s parting words. “She’s Lazar’s daughter.”

  Sean cocked his head, looking baffled, and bounced up and down restlessly on the balls of his feet. “So? What of it? The guy’s dead, right? He’s not going to bother you.”

  Connor gave him a pained look. “Sean—”

  “Our dad was completely bonkers, but nobody holds it against us,” Sean observed. “Or if they do, fuck ’em. Come to think of it, your own daddy wasn’t much of a prize either. And we’ve established that she never screwed you over, right? So?”

  There was no arguing with Sean’s hammer-blunt logic. He did not feel like trying to explain the anger, the remote, glittering coldness he had seen in her eyes as she looked at him over her father’s dead body.

  He resorted to simple rudeness. “Piss off, Sean.”

  Sean’s eyes narrowed. “You do still want her, right?”

  “That’s not the problem!”

  Sean snorted. “Nah. The problem is that you’re a gutless wuss with shriveled little balls the size of peach pits.”

  Connor turned away, making a choking sound.

  Sean flashed his Wonder Boy grin. “Too much woman for you, huh? Great news. Maybe I can catch her on the rebound. Mend her broken heart. I’ll put my all into it, know what I mean?”

  Suddenly he was holding a fistful of Sean’s faded Mickey Mouse sweatshirt, dangling him six inches off the ground. “Don’t even think about her that way,” he hissed. “Or I will take you apart. Got it?”

  Sean grabbed Seth’s fist and hauled himself up so that he could breathe. “Baiting you is so satisfying,” he croaked. “Davy and Connor are so jaded, they don’t react at all, but you, whoa. You’re a sure thing.”

  Seth flung him away. Sean rolled smoothly up onto his feet and brushed the pine needles off his jeans, unperturbed. A good sport. He had to be, with Davy and Connor for brothers. Something cramped inside him, hard and painful, at the thought. He’d been hard on Jesse, too. Jesse had been a damn good sport. Jesse had forgiven him, even when he didn’t deserve it. He turned his back on them and struck out into the meadow. “If Kearn calls, tell him I’m driving back today.”

  “Chickenshit,” he heard Sean mutter.

  He didn’t turn around. He couldn’t handle brotherly banter. He’d rather stare at rocks or trees. After ten months without Jesse, he was out of practice at being nagged and teased. He pushed through the fir trees, cursing as they slapped at him. Goddamn nature. He’d never figured out why people went out and wallowed in it voluntarily. Jesse had tried to get him to go hiking, but Seth had resisted to the bitter end.

  The way he resisted everything. Always.

  That thought stopped him cold, right in the middle of a clump of baby trees. Their pointy tops were about as high as his heart. They trembled in the breeze. He stared at them, wondering why he’d pushed away Jesse’s efforts to help him. Just like he pushed away the McClouds. He pushed away the whole damn world. He beat the world to it, every time, before it had a chance to give him the old heave-ho.

  The same way he’d pushed away Raine.

  A strong gust from the snowy peaks swept through the grove, setting the baby trees swaying. They sprang back upright, soft and flexible. He shivered without his jacket, but he couldn’t go back for it, and face the bright, probing eyes of the McCloud brothers. Not yet.

  The van was packed and ready to go. His business needed him, after all those months of neglect. The routine of his life was waiting for him, safe and predictable.

  But day followed day, and he kept replaying the same footage in his mind. Every single time he’d made love to Raine was imprinted on his memory. Every word, every scent and sigh. Her textures and colors, her tenderness and courage. The woman was incredible. She deserved better than an evil-tempered, foul-mouthed son-of-a-bitch like him.

  Amazing. He was having a pity party. He could hear Jesse sniggering in the back of his mind, telling him to stop jerking off. Stop playing those old negative tapes, that was how Jesse had put it when he was in psychobabble mode. God, how that had annoyed him.

  Seth stepped out of the trees and found himself on a wide, grassy shelf. It dropped abruptly into a canyon where a waterfall leaped and gurgled. It wasn’t a tall, impressive waterfall, but still he stared at it, startled. Almost hypnotized by the milky cascades of foam that spilled down on
either side of mossy green fingers of rock. The water tumbled into a churning pool below, where it glowed a deep, transparent green.

  For the first time, he got a glimmering of a clue as to why people went out, braving bug bites and boredom, to look at stuff like this. It really was pretty. Spectacular, even.

  He wandered closer and stared at it for a long time. The constant rushing, pounding sound of the water created space and quiet in his mind. Enough space to watch a new idea unfurl without flinching from it.

  He pushed Raine away because some part of him was sure that she would end up pushing him, sooner or later. He couldn’t risk the abandonment, the bewilderment. He would rather skip that part, and cut directly to the frozen solitude phase.

  A flash of movement caught his eye. The buck had stepped out of the forest. The two of them looked at each other, a long, cool moment of mutual distrust. The buck melted discreetly back into the trees, drawing Seth’s attention to a square, gleaming stone set in the meadow grass. He walked up to the spot. It was a gravestone, set flush to the ground. The grass was cut short around it, and it was scrubbed severely clean of the lichen and moss that decorated the other rocks. He squatted down and brushed away the leaves and pine needles.

  Kevin Seamus McCloud

  January 10, 1971–August 18, 1992.

  Beloved Brother.

  A buried memory stirred in the back of his mind. Jesse had mentioned his partner having lost a brother some years back, but the information had been of no interest to him at the time.

  Sean was thirty-one, just like this Kevin would have been. He must have lost his twin ten years ago, when he was only twenty-one.

  This time, when the ache started up, he didn’t try any of his usual tricks to distract himself. Seth just gritted his teeth, and breathed and waited. The decade-old marble slab told a mute, painful story, with the blunt simplicity of stone. He squatted there and quietly listened to it.

  It hurt. It shook him. His jaw ached, and his throat ached, and his legs fell asleep. The cold wind swept around and through him. He just kept brushing away the dead leaves and pine needles that blew across the marble and endured the tumult inside him without trying to understand or control it.