Hard Night (11th Hour #3)

by Jackie Ashenden

He’d thought that maybe she’d have found the jeep he kept covered with camo netting and used that to escape.

  But she hadn’t.

  And that’s when the truth that he’d been trying to deny since the moment she’d taken a sip of that vodka came crashing down onto him.

  Because there was one vehicle missing in the little fleet he maintained here and it certainly wasn’t the jeep.

  It was the small Dynali, a light, maneuverable one-person helicopter that he kept for emergency getaways.

  Which could only mean one thing.

  Faith had finally remembered who she was.

  CHAPTER 11

  It had been a while since Joanna had flown a helo and her skills were a bit rusty, but the Dynali was a solid machine and she managed to get herself to Seattle without incident.

  Pity there hadn’t been a bigger helicopter that would have gotten her back to San Diego in one hit, but it was either the Dynali that would get her to Seattle or the jet. And the jet would have meant refueling and she didn’t have time for that.

  So the Dynali and Seattle it was.

  Luckily, she had a contact in Seattle who was then able to get her down to San Diego on another helo, no questions asked.

  Good thing too since questions were the last thing she wanted.

  She spent the journey determinedly not thinking about anything, trying to hold back the wave of memories that threatened to swamp her by sheer force of will.

  She had a lot of that as it turned out.

  Her contact in Seattle had given her a burner phone and by the time she reached San Diego she’d organized a car to take her from the airport out to Jacob’s cliffside home in La Jolla.

  Probably a mistake to go there since it would no doubt be the first place Jacob would come looking for her, but she needed weapons and the house had an impressive armory.

  She just wouldn’t linger. It would take him a while to get back down here anyway, presuming he managed to fix the tires on the jet after she’d slashed them.

  Then again, she couldn’t assume anything about Jacob Night.

  He was dangerous and she’d known that right from the start.

  Jacob’s large, airy, modern home was a set of boxes constructed of glass and stone, set on top of a cliff overlooking the Pacific, and was as heavily protected and fortified as he was. But it wasn’t any drama getting inside. That had been a risk, that he would have changed the facial recognition software on all the locks so she couldn’t get in. But he hadn’t and they unlocked for her like the cave before Ali Baba.

  It might have been a bad sign, of course, but it wasn’t like she had a choice. There wasn’t anywhere else she could get a weapon at short notice and without drawing attention.

  She should have headed straight to the armory once she’d gotten inside, yet she didn’t, veering off to the set of rooms on the east side of the house.

  Clothes. Yes, she needed more clothes. That’s why she went to the rooms she’d once lived in.

  Faith’s rooms.

  Her heart was beating faster than it should have been as she stepped into the bedroom, the pressure of all those memories beating against the doors of her mind.

  But she couldn’t let them in, not all at once. She had to take this slow, pace herself, otherwise she’d crack under the weight like she nearly had back in the bunker with Jacob.

  It had been the taste of the vodka and that fucking song, an unmistakable combination, that had opened the door a crack, memory following on behind it, muscling through that crack and pushing those doors wide open.

  A run-down bar. “Unchained Melody” playing on the old, cracked jukebox and bad vodka. And a man sitting opposite her. A man with black eyes and an unscarred face. Raising a glass to her and smiling, and she was drinking too, relief coursing through her because she’d made a decision.

  She wasn’t going to kill him after all.

  Josh Smith. Who wasn’t her lover and never had been. Who’d once been a good friend and teammate, and whom she’d been sent to kill.

  And whom she’d had to—

  No, she couldn’t think about that, not yet.

  Forcing the memories back, she went over to the dresser, trying to ignore the blackness of the night beyond the windows. She’d loved that view. Loved looking at the ocean, the sun glittering off the waves . . .

  No. No, she hadn’t. That was Faith who’d loved that and she wasn’t Faith anymore. Alone and scared Faith. Terrified, vulnerable Faith.

  She wasn’t that woman. She was Joanna again.

  Riffling through the drawers in the dresser, she grimaced at the pretty, filmy underwear. Impractical and ridiculous. Jesus, what had possessed her to think that’s what she liked?

  Cotton, plain and practical for her bottom half. Sports bras for her top half. Anything else was an indulgence. A waste.

  Her mother had told her a long time ago that nice things weren’t for girls like her and she knew that was true. Killers didn’t wear pretty lace and silk. They weren’t allowed to.

  And she was a killer. She’d accepted that.

  People shouting. Pulling the trigger. Josh’s face blank with shock as he’d fallen, knocking over the table. Blood had bloomed red against the white of his T-shirt. She’d killed him after all? Hadn’t she?

  Joanna sucked in a breath and closed her eyes, trying to shove the memories aside.

  But then another face loomed in her mind. A mirror of Josh’s, but stronger somehow and scarred, yet just as blank with shock.

  She’d hit him and hard, because holding back was never an option with Jacob Night. He’d stop her if he could and if she didn’t take the advantage immediately, he would. And then she’d never find out . . . she’d never know if . . .

  Jesus, if she could just stop thinking for one fucking second.

  She slammed the drawer back in without taking anything from it, then straightened to rifle through the things sitting on top of the dresser. Little bottles of makeup and decorative trinket holders for jewelry. All the girly shit that Faith seemed to like that Joanna had never allowed herself.

  Her hands were shaking as she shoved things aside, not even sure what she was looking for until she saw it, sitting neatly in the little box that held all her special items.

  A necklace. A delicate platinum phoenix on a chain that rested in the hollow of her throat. She’d been out with Jacob one day and she’d seen it in a shop window and for some reason had been caught by it.

  It was expensive and she couldn’t have said why she’d liked it, only that the phoenix rising from the ashes had spoken to her. And Jacob must have seen her looking at it because the next day, when she’d gotten up in the morning, she’d found a little box beside her cereal bowl in the kitchen. And inside the box was the necklace.

  He’d gotten it for her.

  That morning, as she’d taken it out of its box and put it around her neck, tears had pricked her eyes and she hadn’t known why.

  She did now.

  No one had ever bought her jewelry before.

  When she’d been a little girl, she’d wanted to be a princess, with pretty dresses and sparkly necklaces and glass slippers. But her mother had told her she didn’t deserve nice things and besides, princesses were for princes and there were no princes left in this world.

  Not since Joanna had killed the last one.

  She’d never been allowed to forget that and she hadn’t. Except for the past six months, when she hadn’t remembered anything at all.

  Memories of a past she didn’t want, a past she’d been trying to escape pushed against her mind. Her mother’s face, lined and aged by alcohol and disappointment and grief, telling her she had to be good for this new stepfather. Because he had money for a change and it was worth a few slaps to have a warm bed and food in the cupboard. And that if Joanna ruined it for her this time, her mother would call social services and get them to take Joanna away.

  She leaned against the dresser, a crushing weight descending on her ches
t.

  No. Fuck, no. She’d left her mother and that pathetic, lousy existence behind. Found herself a new family in the military, a family that appreciated her and her skills. Who liked that she was a killer through and through.

  Something dug into her palm and when she looked down, she realized she was clutching something in her hand. She opened her fingers slowly to find the little phoenix on its fine chain glittering there.

  Jacob had given her that. The only person in the whole world to have ever gotten her something pretty.

  Put it back. You don’t need that shit.

  Yeah, she should. She knew who she was now and that wasn’t Faith, with her ridiculous pencil skirts and the high heels she’d had to practice walking in. With all that stupid, girly, feminine bullshit designed to make a target out of a woman. Faith, who’d cried over a fucking necklace some man had given her.

  Not “some man.” Jacob.

  Her heart shuddered in her chest, as if the thought of Jacob was painful somehow, so she ignored the sensation.

  She wasn’t Faith anymore. She was Joanna. A soldier. A killer. Just like her mother had always told her she was. And she didn’t fight it these days, no, she embraced it. Became it.

  Her inclination was to throw the little phoenix back into the box it had come from. Yet, for reasons she couldn’t have explained even to herself, she stuffed it into the back pocket of her pants.

  Then she went to find the armory.

  It was down in the basement, behind a steel door that had the kind of locks on it that would have done a Swiss bank vault proud, but she had no problems getting inside. Another retina scan and the door unlocked for her beautifully.

  Inside there were metal lockers standing against the walls with yet more locks, and she opened all of them.

  It was an arms dealer’s paradise, with enough weaponry to supply a small army.

  She looked wistfully at a rocket launcher but since that was something she could hardly keep tucked away at the small of her back, she moved on. She needed something smaller. Much smaller.

  One locker was full of ARs and she picked up a Remington, examining it. Thinking.

  The plan she’d gone with on the journey to San Diego had been half-formed at best, because she hadn’t wanted to face the memories, not just yet. But if she wanted to find out what had happened to Josh, then she was going to have to.

  She needed to figure out how to find him.

  If he isn’t dead. If you haven’t killed him.

  Grief and pain waited for her, she could feel them gathering like vultures, but she kept her thoughts firmly on the present. There would be plenty of time to think about what had happened and how she’d potentially killed the first real friend she’d ever had. Plenty of time.

  Right now, getting armed, then getting a decent plan together, was more important. And quickly. There was no telling how fast Jacob would follow her and he’d definitely come here first. She needed to get a move on.

  So. She’d take the AR and a couple of handguns; that should cover every eventuality.

  Calmly, she disassembled the AR and put it in its case before finding a bag she could put the case in, along with a good supply of ammo. Then she chose a couple of handguns—a Sig and a Glock—putting one in the bag, the other in the waistband of her pants at the small of her back.

  Then she tossed the bag over her shoulder and got out of there.

  She was on her way out of the house when an idea came to her.

  Finding Josh was always going to be the difficult part. She had some idea of who might have taken him, but no certainties. And that didn’t leave her with much choice about what to do next.

  If the people after her were the same as the people who’d taken Josh, then she needed to let them find her and once they did, perhaps she’d be able to negotiate an exchange of information. That was if they didn’t kill her outright first.

  But that was a problem for the future. Right now, she had to find them and the most logical way to do that was to let them find her first.

  Or rather, let them find Faith.

  She made another detour back into Faith’s room and grabbed some clothes at random, stuffing them into the bag along with the guns. That done she finally headed to the door and let herself out of the house.

  There was no one waiting outside—thank God—so she made her way down the sidewalk until she was well away from the house. She ordered herself an Uber and got them to take her first to a 7-Eleven for some supplies, then to a motel well away from La Jolla.

  It was a crappy place that looked like it hadn’t been updated since the nineties, but the reception was open and it was quiet and off the beaten track, which was all that mattered.

  Once she was in the room, she locked the door, kicked the bag of weapons under the bed, then headed to the shower. Ten minutes later, feeling a little better now she was clean, she went over to the low coffee table where she’d dumped her paper bag of supplies and took out the whisky bottle. Finding a semi-clean glass, she poured herself a generous couple of fingers, then took out the protein bar she’d also bought and sat down on the couch.

  She ate the bar quickly, letting the food settle her stomach, then she took a sip of the whisky.

  It was cheap and raw, and burned on the way down, but it got the taste of vodka out of her head at least.

  She closed her eyes, trying to calm her racing heartbeat.

  This was always going to be hard. The moment when she stopped moving and planning and not thinking. The moment when she’d have to face the return of the memories inside her. Memories she’d been running from for six months.

  She took another sip of the whisky, knowing she was going to have to do it, the alcohol doing nothing to melt the ice sitting in her gut. Of course, her mind kept wanting to protect her, telling her she had to get up, make sure her weapons were in good working order, to watch out the window in case anyone had followed her, to do anything else but face what she had to face.

  But it had been protecting her for too long and she couldn’t run from it anymore.

  She had to face what she’d done to Josh.

  She had to remember.

  The shitty bar was full of cigarette smoke—no one cared about anti-smoking laws down in this part of South America—the fan turning the dead air only slowly. Tinny music played on an old jukebox and the dirt floor was dusty, something crunching under her boots as she’d stepped inside, but the light was too dim to see what it was so she ignored it.

  Josh was there at one of the tables, obviously waiting, and as soon as she entered, he kicked his chair back and stared at her. A challenge.

  Her heart leapt even though she’d told it not to—she hadn’t seen him for two years and she’d missed him, God, so much—because she wasn’t here for old times’ sake. She was here with a mission.

  And her mission was to take him out.

  Yet she didn’t go for her Sig. She walked over to the table and sat down instead. Because she’d promised herself that she’d find out why first. Why he’d betrayed the team the way he had done.

  “I know why you’re here,” he said, pushing a glass over the table toward her, then filling it up with some kind of clear liquid from the bottle in front of him. “You’re here to kill me, aren’t you?”

  The Beach Boys were playing on the jukebox. “Surfin’ USA.” Such a strange counterpoint to his blunt statement.

  She wasn’t surprised he knew. He’d never been a stupid man and he would have guessed their superiors wouldn’t let him go without some kind of comeback.

  So she didn’t waste time denying it. Instead she picked up the glass and sipped. Vodka. Cheap vodka, the taste sharp and raw. She drained the glass without a grimace, then put it down with a click. “I just want to know why, Josh.”

  His eyes gleamed. He looked good, if thinner, not that that detracted in any way from his looks. Six-four and built like a linebacker, with a strong jaw and high cheekbones, deeply set black eyes, and a mouth to di
e for, he was devastatingly attractive.

  When he’d first joined the team, she’d found him distracting, but liaisons were forbidden among team members and she hadn’t wanted anything to do with men anyway, so she’d never gone there. But emotionally . . . well, that had been a different story.

  Her mother had told her there were no princes left in the world, but her mother hadn’t met Joshua. He was the first man she’d met who seemed good. Decent. Kind. He’d gotten past her defenses and made a friend of her—the first she’d ever had—which was why his betrayal had hit her so hard.

  It was why she was here in this bar, ready to talk and not taking out her gun and finishing her mission.

  He was her friend and he’d betrayed her and their team and she just . . . wanted to know why.

  He watched her silently. He’d never been a man who spoke unnecessarily. “Why do you want to know?”

  “Why do you think?” She reached around and took out her Sig. Laid it down on the tabletop. “Yes, I was sent here to kill you.”

  “And yet you haven’t.”

  She met his dark eyes. “You’re my friend. Or at least, you used to be.” Her throat felt tight, though she refused to give in to the feeling of grief. Anger was easier, always had been. “Tell me why the fuck you betrayed us, Josh. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you right here and now.”

  He glanced at the Sig, then back at her, his expression giving nothing away. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  She didn’t bother to hide her anger. “Jesus Christ, how many missions have we done together? How often have I saved your ass and you saved mine? We’ve been through hell together so many times I’ve lost count. So don’t give me that bullshit about not understanding.”

  He was silent again, lifting his glass and draining it. Then he put it back down and poured himself another measure, refilling her glass in the process.

  “Why should I tell you a goddamn thing?” he asked. “You’re going to kill me anyway.”

  She couldn’t believe he even had to ask. “You’re really going to ask me that question? After everything we went through?”

  He had the grace to look away at that. “Fuck, Jo,” he said at last. “You really want to know why? Money.” He looked back at her and there was something very, very dark in his eyes. “They offered me money. A lot of it. And power. I’d be their go-between, the negotiator. All I had to do was sabotage our mission because it was getting too close to their operations.” He picked up his glass. “You know what it’s like to grow up with nothing. With no one on your side.” Tipping it up, he took a swallow. “It makes you weak. Vulnerable. Money, on the other hand, is a whole lot of power right there. It won’t abandon you. It won’t betray you.” He drained the glass. “It gives you respect. And I have to say, I like that. I like that a lot.”