Distract him. Get his attention away from Kennedy. “I don’t understand,” she said. “Have never understood. Why didn’t you kill me? Shoot me? Eliminate me? Why give me so many chances to live?”
“Ah. That.” Jimmy’s face cleared. He became once again the suave, attractive man she had seen in the kitchen of his Wildrose Valley home. He walked over to the desk, seated himself on the top, tweaked his jeans over his knees. “I should have killed you, shouldn’t I? But you had survived winter in the Sawtooths. You’d cut off your finger to escape me, stowed away on my plane, made a life for yourself in a new town. Those actions alone were enough to earn my admiration. But when I realized you’d managed to get self-righteous Kennedy McManus to listen to you, a thief, and promise to help you eliminate me … I had to give you a chance. You’re a survivor. You’re as smart as he is. You’re almost as smart as I am.”
“Thank you. I guess.”
Jimmy’s eyes glowed with sick enthusiasm. “I had you targeted in a hit-and-run—and you had already set up a doppelganger to take the hit!”
“I did not!” Poor Mrs. Dvorkin. The woman didn’t deserve to suffer for resembling Summer.
Undaunted, Jimmy continued, “That was so easy for you to evade, I tried something more original—I dropped a tree on you. You drove your way out of it. So I flew you up in the mountains and left you.” He smiled whimsically. “With your survival skills, that one was almost too easy.”
How dare he downplay her suffering! “In a winter storm!”
“I left that equipment for you. I was already fond of you. I wanted you to live. That’s why I kissed you.” He beckoned her. “Remember that?”
“No.”
He glanced toward Kennedy.
Kennedy, who had struggled into a kneeling position. One hand rested on his thigh. The manacle and chain held the other on the tabletop. His face was crushed, and blood … blood spattered his jacket, his jeans, the floor, the walls.
She couldn’t stare. She couldn’t cry. She had to keep her attention on Jimmy. She had to play this exactly right, or her failure would mean death to … to them all.
She looked at Jimmy and lied. “I don’t remember you kissing me.”
“I do. You were drugged.” Jimmy’s voice lowered to a croon. “I could have taken you right there on the ground with the helicopter pilot watching.”
Kennedy knelt on the floor, his chest heaving. But his breathing had calmed, and he listened.
She didn’t want him to hear this. But he listened.
“You fought,” Jimmy said. “You tried to hit me, but your coordination was off. You bit me and drew blood.” He showed her the inside of his lower lip. “You struggled as hard as you could. Struggled! When you should have been unconscious from the drugs.”
She shook her head. She didn’t want to recall this again. Didn’t want to hear him talk about his triumph, and her weakness.
“And then.” Jimmy put his fingers to his lips. “Oh, darlin’. You gave in. You kissed me, and it was like you came in my mouth. You wrapped your legs around me. You begged me for sex.” He laughed. “You remember now, don’t you?”
“No.” But she did.
“Too bad.” He scrutinized her, and he knew the truth. “Remembering is a great appetizer.”
She had to change the subject, before things got out of control and she forgot who he was, and what he was: a brilliant man, warped and broken, a man who raised himself from the dead. A killer. Always, first and foremost, a killer. “So you didn’t murder me because I’m almost as good as you.”
“Even now, you don’t quite understand. I didn’t kill you because I knew you were my soul mate.”
Horrified, disbelieving, she said, “No. I’m not! I’m not your soul mate.” She was not. Summer wasn’t wicked and cruel. She didn’t hate and live for vengeance. She didn’t care whether her mother had lied about her father, whether her fiancé had sold a bunch of lies about her to the press. She didn’t care that Kennedy had turned his back to her when she needed him most. She didn’t.
Jimmy watched her with eyes that saw her conflicts, her hatreds, her anguish. He tapped his chest. “Choose. Choose me. Go with me. Promise to love me as long as I live. I know you. I understand you.”
“You don’t!”
“If you go with me,” Jimmy said, “Kennedy lives.”
“What?” That wasn’t a choice. That was extortion.
“Choose him … and he dies.”
“Better,” Kennedy muttered thickly.
“That’s stupid,” Summer said to both of them. “You men and your absurd games and your ridiculous, deadly choices.”
“It is your decision,” Jimmy said.
Summer didn’t take her gaze away from him. She didn’t dare. She had no idea what he would do next: knock her unconscious, then kill Kennedy and drag her away, and tell her Kennedy was still alive … she could not believe that Jimmy intended to leave Kennedy alive, no matter what choice she made. “You’re demanding I sacrifice myself.”
“You have already sacrificed yourself once for Kennedy’s nephew. You’ve made sure your Virtue Falls friends were protected. Sacrifice is a pattern for you.” Jimmy was mocking her. “You always do what’s right, don’t you?”
She walked stiff-legged and indignant toward him. “You’re a fool if you think that.”
“In this case, the sacrifice will not be so dire or so cruel.” He smiled, the most beautiful, wicked smile she had ever seen in her life. “Will it?” In slow motion, he stood, reached out to her and wrapped his arm around her waist.
He could not hypnotize her … could he? He could not bend her to his will with the force of his gaze … could he?
He brought her close, groin to groin. He bent her, caught the back of her head in his hand, held her … and still he smiled.
In a thick, halting voice, Kennedy said, “You … bastard.”
For all the heed Jimmy paid him, Kennedy might not have been in the room. Jimmy was demonstrating, to her and to Kennedy, the control he had assumed over her, how completely helpless she was, and more important, how completely helpless Kennedy was.
But for all that Jimmy was showing off, Summer also knew that his body stirred against hers. He wanted her, wanted to be inside her.
And her body stirred, too. The helplessness she experienced was not from fear, but from need. He was the snake in the Garden of Eden, tempting her with delight. He was the Sawtooth Mountains, isolated and bleak, beautiful and tempting. Deadly. So deadly. And in an odd way … there she was home.
She feared him.
She wanted to be one with him.
“You’re crazy,” she whispered.
“Perhaps I am.” He nestled his cheek against her hair. “Perhaps I am sane, the only sane person in the world. And I’ll take you with me, show you madness and brilliance, train you in sexual desire and tormented pleasure, teach you to use your magnificent intelligence in a way you never imagined.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY
Through the agony, the worry, the anger, Kennedy observed as Summer fell under Jimmy’s spell. He didn’t believe that she could be so gullible. Yet … she watched Jimmy as if entranced. “Don’t … listen to him.” Kennedy’s voice scraped with pain—and exasperation. “Don’t … go with him. Don’t even think about it. He’s insane. Can’t you see it?”
Jimmy lifted his head and considered Kennedy, and in contrast, his voice was low, controlled, elegant and smooth. “You imagined because you were willing to sacrifice yourself for her that she would choose you?”
“She doesn’t have to … choose me. Or you. She’s … free.” Kennedy couldn’t form the words without slurring. Jimmy had struck blows that had broken his cheekbones, his molars. His nerves had been shredded; they could not easily perform the primitive task of speaking. Yet they somehow continued to find pathways to carry pain stimuli to his brain. He was in agony, body and soul, yet he had to concentrate on this—convincing Jimmy to live up to his vow. “You …
promised she would be … free.” No. No! He could not lose the power of speech now.
“She is free—so she can choose me.” Jimmy laughed and shook Summer lightly as if waking her from her trance. “What do you think, my darling? You sacrificed your time, your safety, your finger, almost your life for Kennedy’s nephew. Shall we use Kennedy as a blood sacrifice to set the cornerstone of our love?”
Summer swayed slowly back and forth as if hypnotized by Jimmy’s words, his voice, his handsome, evil façade. She blinked at him, then looked unseeing at Kennedy. “Jimmy, I don’t care about Kennedy. I care about you. And I have to do this.” In slow motion, she leaned into him, flattening her breasts against his chest. She placed one hand on his shoulder, the other on his cheek, and she kissed him. She kissed him as she had never kissed Kennedy. She kissed him with undiluted passion and unreasonable dedication.
She kissed wholeheartedly, with an open mouth and such fervent need Jimmy’s hands shook as he lifted them to cover hers.
It was only then that Kennedy saw the truth.
Jimmy loved her.
How could he not? Jimmy mocked her generosity, but she was truly good. Not perfect. Not the paragon Kennedy had wanted her to be. But Jimmy was right. She had sacrificed herself for Miles, had set herself on a collision course with death. She had placed herself between Kennedy and Jimmy, jeopardizing her life and her sanity.
Yet despite all evidence, Kennedy hadn’t trusted her. He could say he had his reasons, that seldom had he witnessed anything but avarice and selfishness, and that was what he had come to expect from life. But that was an excuse, and he didn’t allow excuses for anyone, much less himself.
Now it was too late.
Did she love Jimmy? He didn’t know.
But he did know that Jimmy had mesmerized her. Jimmy had enchanted her with the promises he made with his body and his words. She had stopped Jimmy from beating him, yes. Yet now she barely noticed Kennedy was in the room.
She pulled away from the kiss. She stroked Jimmy’s ash brown hair back behind his ear and smiled into his dazed eyes. “Don’t kill Kennedy. You know I hate killing. You and I … we don’t need a sacrifice. We’re perfect together, just as we are.” To Kennedy’s horror, the tenor of her voice mirrored Jimmy’s—not as deep, of course, but in cadence and tone and creamy-smooth seduction. “I am the sacrifice. You are the sacrifice. Don’t you see? Together … we will be bleeding and healed, whole and one.”
Jimmy nodded slowly, as mesmerized by her as she was by him.
Because—it was horrible to contemplate—he loved her.
Kennedy couldn’t bear it. He could not bear it. “Summer! Listen to yourself. You’re not … even making … sense.”
She whipped around to face him. “Couldn’t you let me remember you without all this noise?”
“Huh,” Jimmy said. “He can barely talk.”
“Shut up, Jimmy! This is my turn.” She took a step toward Kennedy. “You didn’t want me, remember? Not forever. You didn’t trust me. You wanted to pay me for saving Miles. Remember? Remember? So don’t get all noble now and pretend you care … although I guess Jimmy is right. You were willing to sacrifice yourself for me only as long as I lived the way you wanted me to—without you, without him. Alone.”
“Summer. Please. Don’t do this. Leave me if you must, but don’t—” For the first time, Kennedy realized what he might have to give to win. And he had to win, or Summer would be gone. He would seek her in every woman’s face, but she would live forever in the shadows, dominated by Jimmy. Dominated by evil.
He struggled to get to his feet. “James.”
Jimmy’s head jerked around, his attention inexorably caught by Kennedy’s voice. Kennedy … the man he had respected. The man he had hunted. The man who had dominated his life.
“James.” Kennedy fought his way past shattered bone and broken nerves to speak the words that would goad Jimmy into a final act of savagery. “We have so much in common. Our intelligence. The game. Our enmity. So … do what you have to do to exorcise me. Kill me. Sacrifice me. Do it! Sacrifice me as the cornerstone of your love.”
Jimmy took a step toward him. “Why?”
“Then Summer will have no more illusions about who you are, what you are, and she’ll be free of you.” Kennedy pointed at his own face. “Come on, man. You haven’t got much time. A knife to the heart. A bullet to the brain. A garrote around the throat. You’ve done it all before.”
Jimmy’s eyes glowed with a sick desire. “I have. In prison, I did it all. It was the only way to survive. You taught me that. You taught me to kill.”
“Then use your skills.”
Jimmy took a step toward Kennedy.
Loudly, prosaically, Summer sighed with exasperation. “What a drama queen Kennedy is. Come on, Jimmy. They’re going to figure out where we are. We’ve got to leave.”
Jimmy wavered.
She slid a hand around his neck. “Darling, you promised me heaven. How long must I wait?”
Still Jimmy stared at Kennedy, fixated by the chance to finish this at last.
Kennedy stared back. Yes, motherfucker. Look at me. Do it. Kill me.
With a snarl of fury, Summer turned, picked up the rebar, and swept it across the desk. Books, pens, and paper clips flew. She picked up the black velvet bag and stuck it in her pocket. Then she swept again. Her holster and pistol toppled off. She sent the keyboard and monitor crashing into the wall. Cables stretched, then snapped. Sparks flew. Glass shattered.
Astonished, the men stared at her flushed face.
Jimmy’s Glock 18 automatic pistol remained on the desktop. She picked it up, smiled at it, then grinned unpleasantly at the two men.
They both stepped back.
She checked the safety, then tossed it into the corner. “You two make me sick.” She walked toward the door.
Damn her. Kennedy had baited the hook, hooked the fish, had been reeling Jimmy in—and just like that, with a sweep of her arm, she seized Jimmy’s attention. She held such power over Jimmy.
And over Kennedy. In a low voice, Kennedy said, “Summer. Please. Before I even met you, I loved your picture. Don’t leave me alone, Summer. Don’t leave me.”
She didn’t even glance his way. She kept walking.
Jimmy hurried after her, grabbed her arm, and twisted her to face him. “So you’re going with me?”
“Do you promise not to kill him?” she asked.
“I won’t kill him,” Jimmy assured her. “But you—you’re sacrificing yourself to save him?”
“Yes, damn you. I’m sacrificing myself to save him.” But her body told the truth. She wasn’t sacrificing anything. She swayed toward Jimmy, her face upraised, waiting for a kiss.
Jimmy laughed softly, and opened the door for her.
The ocean’s wind billowed through the entry and into the office, stirring the papers on the floor, the pages of the books, clearing Kennedy’s mind of everything but pain and frozen anguish.
With a last, contemptuous glance at him, Summer walked out of the house, out of the game, out of his life.
He was not so lucky with Jimmy.
Jimmy stayed. He came to within arm’s reach of Kennedy. And he gloated. The bastard gloated. In a low voice, he said, “I promised not to kill you. I’ll keep my promise to her. But I bought this property. I stopped construction. The place is abandoned. No one knows you’re here.”
Kateri knew he was here. “You lied … to her.”
“I didn’t lie. I simply didn’t tell her all the truth. You’ll get an infection from your wounds. You’ll die here, screaming in pain. And no one will ever know what happened to the honorable and wondrous Kennedy McManus.”
Eventually, Kateri would send help. “Summer … will figure out what you’ve … done.”
“Don’t you get it? She doesn’t care about you. Not really. She and I are alike—we survive by any means possible. And you despise us for that.”
But it didn’t matter what Kate
ri did. Kennedy didn’t care if he lived or died. “I don’t despise … Summer.” Speech became more difficult, but he had to say this. “I love her. Take … care … her. Treasure … as she is meant … be treasured.”
“Don’t tell me what to do with her. She chose me. I know what’s best.” Jimmy walked toward the door again, and turned. “When you get desperate, try drinking your piss and eating your earwax. I heard it’ll keep you alive a little longer. You’ll suffer a little longer.”
Summer came back and stuck her head into the room. “Jimmy, come on. I can hear the helicopter coming for us.”
Jimmy offered his hand.
She took it and led him out the door. It shut behind them with a solid thunk, leaving Kennedy alone.
He fell to his knees and for the first time since he had seen his parents led away in handcuffs, he cried. Blood and tears mixed on his face and splattered in a bright pink shower onto the rough wood floor.
Yes, he had survived. Yes, he had lifted himself out of the filth of his past and become a man of honor and integrity. And what had that won him? No love. No peace. Only pain, mutilation, and loneliness. His sister was right. If he didn’t die here, one day he would be an old man, looking for Summer, sleeping with her photo, always wondering where she was, what had happened to her …
His face burned and bled. His lips were swollen. His tongue was swollen. His throat was closing. Maybe he would die now.
Pain pierced his knee and riveted his attention. A shard of glass had cut through his jeans. He jerked it loose, and more blood mixed with the blood from his face … he was kneeling on the contents of Jimmy’s desktop: the papers, the pens, the paper clips …
The paper clips. The paper clips that could be straightened and used to unlock the manacle. No one knew that better than him. No one … except perhaps for Summer.
Driven by anger and purpose, he scrabbled through the debris.
Maybe there was more to this than he had imagined.
Maybe Summer had not trashed the desktop by accident.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
Summer laughed when she saw the house’s outer entrance. As Kennedy promised, the iron door had been blasted, warped, and mangled, and rested flat on the floor of the entry hall. The studs around it were shredded, seared and blistered. Mr. Szymanski’s grenade had done what she had hoped. Now it was up to her to finish the job, to take out the bastard who had no respect for classic cars. No respect for age. No respect for life.
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