Deadly Pursuit

by Ann Christopher

Dexter Brady reached out a hand to steady her. “Are we under attack?”

  She opened her mouth and prayed she could produce a laughing sentence rather than nervous vomit. “I need to get out of here or I’ll be late for … the dentist.”

  Somehow she grabbed her purse and managed a sedate walk out to the lobby area, but waiting for the elevator was out of the question. Hurtling through the fire door, she raced down the two flights, slowed up again through the atrium, and went through the glass doors to the parking lot, where she found her car, got in and called Jerome on her cell phone.

  “Yeah,” she said when he answered. “I got the address to the safe house like you wanted. And I need my shit.”

  “Good girl. I’ve got something extra special for you.” The smile in his voice came across the line, loud and clear. “Call it a little thank-you for everything you’ve done.”

  Kerry drove up I-71 at eighty-five miles per hour, fifty miles north of Cincinnati. He was almost at the late afternoon meeting spot, but part of him hoped he’d lose control and wrap his car around a tree so he wouldn’t have to be Kerry Randolph for another cursed minute.

  This idea was gaining strength when his phone buzzed. He grabbed it from the cup holder, and one quick glance told him more than he wanted to know.

  Caller unknown said the lighted display. If only that were true.

  Could he not go two freaking hours without being tracked like a FedEx package?

  Up ahead, another overpass zoomed into view, closer … closer … and he ignored the phone’s second buzz and eyed the massive pillars. A car racing at this speed didn’t have a chance against unforgivable concrete like that. All he needed to do was stomp the accelerator and loosen his fingers, just a little, and it would all be over. The constant fear, the minefields in every direction he tiptoed, the unwavering certainty that a violent death was sneaking up on him, waiting around every corner.

  Except that then he was level with the overpass and too soon it was disappearing in his rearview mirror, and he was still alive and still the spineless punk that had stood there and watched his oldest friend get shot in the back of the head for an imagined crime that he hadn’t committed.

  And Kerry had nothing left except the flat green fields streaking by his windows, the sickening knot of cowardice and fear growing in his gut, and the buzzing phone.

  Snatching it up, he answered on the fifth vibration. “Yeah.”

  “Where you at?” demanded Kareem. “I’ve got some shit for you to do.”

  The weight of Kerry’s exhaustion pressed down on him, so heavy he was surprised it didn’t push him through the bottom of the car. He was tired of the endless waiting for the shoe to drop. He was tired of the constant fear. Most of all, he was tired of himself.

  “I’ll be there in a minute.”

  “All right then,” Kareem said. “Don’t keep me waiting.”

  Disgusted, Kerry tossed the phone down and tried to focus on the highway. His exit came into view and he rolled off the ramp and turned right into a BP gas station that was deserted except for the silvery bright gleam of a fuel tanker.

  Kerry drove around back, to the meeting place behind the freestanding men’s restroom, and parked his car. He got out and stood where he was, taking a minute to enjoy the sunshine on his face and the cold air in his nostrils, clearing out the woe-is-me from his brain and letting him think clearly enough to remember one fact: he was doing the right thing for probably the first and last time in his life.

  After three deep breaths, he turned to Dexter Brady’s parked car, which was idling next to his, went around to the passenger side, and got in.

  Chapter 23

  “What’ve you got?” Dexter Brady asked without preamble.

  Nothing, even if it was a lie, was the best answer because it was the one least likely to get Kerry killed, but his conscience wouldn’t let him leave Yogi’s headless body lying in that field for buzzards to eat. Funny, wasn’t it? At the ripe old age of thirty, which was ancient by street standards, he’d chosen this moment to sprout a conscience and start feeling guilty about all the shit he’d done over the years.

  Yeah, funny. Either that or criminally stupid.

  He hesitated. Even now he wasn’t sure he could trust Brady, and he was sure the brother would just as soon arrest him on some trumped-up charge as look him in the eye.

  Still, Kerry had started down this road and might as well keep walking. He was now a confidential informant. A confidential informant was a snitch, the lowest form of human life—just beneath pedophiles and men who had sex with dead bodies—dressed up in an Armani tuxedo.

  People who snitched on Kareem Gregory had the expected life span of amoebas, but those were the breaks. Snitching, like popping a cherry, was easier after you’d done it once. Having facilitated the money-laundering setup, it was easier to snitch on Kareem now. Easier, but not easy.

  Brady glared. “Sometime before my pension kicks in would be nice.”

  “He clipped Yogi. Shot him to the back of the head this morning.”

  Brady’s eyes widened with horror. “Christ.”

  There was no need to define he, nor did there seem to be any question about Brady believing him, which was a small consolation.

  “What happened?”

  Kerry shrugged. “He blames Yogi for screwing up on some roach-killing project. Killing the wrong roaches. That mean anything to you?”

  Brady had his emotions back under control now, but he couldn’t prevent a flicker of understanding from crossing his face. “Yeah. What else?”

  “I was the only one who saw. Kareem shot him in the back of the head after acting like he’d give him a second chance.” Kerry broke off because he couldn’t speak. Brady looked away, out the driver’s side window, giving him a minute to pull himself together.

  “You can’t leave him out there like that, man.”

  “Where is he?” Brady asked.

  Kerry told him and Brady made a quick decision. “I’ll arrange for an agent to find him. He’ll make like a hunter with a dog or some such.”

  “Appreciate it,” Kerry said.

  “You know what he did with the weapon?”

  “Yeah. He gave it to me for safekeeping. Why the fuck you ask me a question like that?”

  In a trick that reminded Kerry uncomfortably of Kareem’s ability to do nothing but look at you and somehow make you feel smaller than half a grain of sand and stupider than an ice cube salesman at the North Pole, Brady stared at him, eyes narrowed and jaw tight.

  “I don’t think you understand,” Brady said, and his voice was low and rough, just like Kareem’s, and his aura of power and invincibility expanded to fill the car, just like Kareem’s, “that I’m the only one going to bat for you. I’m the only one willing to put in a word for you with the U.S. attorney, and I’m the only one willing to stick his neck out to try to keep you safe.”

  Yeah, Kerry got all that.

  On the other hand, scarier men than Dexter Brady had threatened Kerry lately, and Kerry was tired of running scared. Plus, he was pretty sure that no matter how angry Brady ever got at him, Brady would never shoot him in the back of the head.

  “And here’s what you need to understand,” Kerry said. “I’m the brother that can help you put Kareem away for the rest of his life. I know you’ve got a hard-on for the money-laundering charges, but that’s nothing compared to the kind of shit he’s gotten away with. If you don’t want my help, good luck trying to get something on him. Maybe you can put together another task force and see if you can charge him with a parking violation or something.”

  Brady’s cool finally seemed to be slipping because he all but growled at the sarcasm. “Have you got anything to place him in that field other than your version of events, which he’s going to deny? Hell, for all we know he’s planting the gun in your house right now and about to drop the dime on you. We need to give a jury something to work with.”

  “I don’t have shit.”

  �
�Yeah, you don’t have shit.” Brady snorted. “You don’t have shit and I don’t have anything except a wasted afternoon spent driving up here and a murdered drug dealer in a field that I can’t pin on Kareem. I told you we needed to get you wired up.”

  “I’m not wearing a wire. If Kareem catches me with a wire, I’m dead on the spot.”

  “Then what’s the point? Why are we having these little meetings? So we can catch up on all the latest Kareem Gregory gossip and talk about his winter fashion selections? You haven’t produced a single thing—”

  Oh, hell no. Kerry wasn’t going to sit quietly by while Brady rewrote history and erased all the parts where Kerry had stuck his neck on the line.

  “I fingered him in the first place.”

  “Yeah, and like you said, that led to money laundering. I put a team in there, ran an operation and all we got was our dicks in our hands and money laundering. Now my men are either dead or in hiding and that motherfucker’s still walking the streets. When are you going to give me something I can use? Where is his distribution center? Where does he store his shit?”

  For the first time all afternoon—hell, it felt like the first time in his life—Kerry smiled. Because there was a tiny sign of hope that they might all be out from under Kareem Gregory’s thumb sometime this millennium.

  “Now you’re asking the right questions,” he told Brady. “Guess who’s been put in charge of distribution now that Yogi’s gone?”

  The words hung out there for several long beats and Brady tilted his head and his eyes slid out of focus, as though he’d heard the words but couldn’t process their implications. But then, quite suddenly, Brady’s gaze swung back to Kerry, and it was shrewd, narrowed and excited.

  And he smiled back.

  The loss of Jack’s heat woke Amara up the next morning.

  Groggy, her side sore but not terrible, she tried out a ginger movement or two and twisted beneath the tangled linens in time to see him get to his feet and stare down at her in the predawn light breaking at the curtain’s edge.

  Reaching out, she caught his forearm and they held on, and for that one second they were just a pair of lovers, the same as any other, trying to let each other go long enough to begin their day. But then he slid his hand down her arm and away and the connection was broken.

  They’d only been using borrowed time anyway, but letting him go hurt every time. One of these times he’d leave and never come back. That was what people did, especially people who were marked for death.

  They left.

  She propped her head on her hand and watched him search the floor for his underwear. Looking at him aroused her, even now when her body felt sore but still delicious and satisfied. The gleam of his skin, the hard muscled curves of his long limbs, the thick nest of dark hair between his legs and the length of his penis, semiengorged and ruddy with a morning erection—the sight of all that resonated in her body.

  “Go back to sleep, Bunny,” he told her. “You need your rest.”

  “You didn’t think I needed rest last night.”

  This lame attempt at humor fell flat because his lips thinned and he looked away, unable to hold her gaze. “Last night I was selfish. Again. I seem to have a problem with that where you’re concerned.”

  “Don’t.” Ripping the sheet free from the bed, she stood and wrapped it around herself. Only she moved too fast—man, she really needed to take her pain meds, and soon—and couldn’t hide her slight wince from Jack’s eagle eyes. “I feel fine—”

  “I should keep my hands to myself.”

  She could hear the recriminations building in his hoarse voice and feel the hot shame radiating off his skin. If this kept going, he’d be banging his forehead against the wall again, and she couldn’t have that.

  “Don’t say that. I need you to touch me. Need it.”

  Evidently there were no words that wouldn’t pour out of her mouth when she was under this man’s influence, nothing she wouldn’t say or risk.

  “Touch me.” Rubbing against him, she grabbed his hand and clamped it to her breasts, urging him to caress, to squeeze. He did, hardly needing the encouragement. Despite the sudden rigidity in his body, she knew he wasn’t in control. Neither of them was when it came to this thing they did to each other.

  Groaning, he caught her mouth beneath his and kissed her deep. The desperation in his frantic movements—he ran his hands over her head, cheeks, shoulders, hips and butt—rocked her to the depths of her belly.

  Or maybe it was only her own rising fear that she felt.

  Just when she thought they were about to tumble to the bed and lose themselves in the oblivion of each other, he pushed her away, hard, and there was nothing frantic about him now, nothing undecided.

  They stared at each other, their panting breath harsh in the morning’s stillness.

  There was regret in his glittering eyes, which was some small consolation. “I have to go, Amara.”

  “I know.”

  But he stood there watching her, the muscled slabs of his chest pumping like bellows, and he didn’t go.

  A dumb question popped into her head but she asked it anyway. How much longer would she have the chance to ask him questions, dumb or otherwise? “Did you sleep?”

  An almost-smile touched his lips. “I don’t sleep.”

  “You should.”

  “I have better things to do in that bed with you than sleep.”

  She’d noticed. “Today’s the day, huh?” she asked, another dumb question.

  That hint of a smile disappeared. He swallowed with a hard bob of his Adam’s apple. “Today’s the day.”

  The drill wasn’t entirely new to her, having represented a protected witness or two in her practice. Jack would have an armed and uniformed escort of several officers that would get him safely to the federal courthouse’s underground parking garage in an unmarked SUV. They would smuggle him to a secure holding area via some back elevator or other, and would get him to the courtroom through hidden hallways and staircases that the general public never saw.

  He would testify under the watchful and protective eyes of his bodyguards but would also have to meet the eyes of the man who wanted him dead. The two men would be separated and have no opportunity to confront each other, except for when Jack testified, but Jack would be subjected to the man’s malevolent presence and know that he was actively trying to kill him even if Jack couldn’t prove it.

  “Are you ready for this?” she asked.

  “Past ready.”

  Yeah. It was there in his face, the hard glint of determination and maybe a little relief. That made sense to her. After hiding in the shadows trying to stay alive, he could finally do something active and was happy about it. A man like Jack could never be happy doing nothing other than cooking in a diner and pretending he was invisible.

  “Are you scared?”

  He shrugged, looking wry. “Scared and I are old friends.”

  That wasn’t news, but she still hated to hear it. And the closer he got to leaving the safe house to testify, the more the fear clamped down around her throat. Her imagination kicked into turbo-overdrive and she had the sudden image, bright and clear as a full harvest moon on a crisp fall night, of him lying in the alley outside the courthouse.

  Shot. Bleeding. Dead.

  “You’ll wear a bulletproof vest, won’t you?” There was a definite note of panic in her voice now. She touched his arm, pressed it. “If they tell you to wear a vest—”

  “Yeah, I’ll do what they tell me to.”

  For some reason she didn’t entirely believe him, but his unwavering gaze held hers for a minute and that was some reassurance. “How long will your testimony take?”

  They were circling closer to something here and the tension level in the room reflected it, hiking up into the orange zone and bordering on red. His gaze skittered away and settled on some distant object over her shoulder. His light tone didn’t fool her for one second.

  “You know how this
goes. They’ll choose the jury. Have motions and opening statements. I’ll begin my testimony, probably this afternoon.” He paused and the weight of the earth pressed down on them in the silence. Now his gaze settled on the floor, somewhere near his bare feet. “I’ll probably finish up tomorrow. Unless something … happens.”

  Something happens. What a nice euphemism, useful to cover anything from the judge getting a flat tire and being delayed on his way to court to Jack being shot and killed in the street on his way to the courthouse.

  “So,” she said, needing and yet dreading clarification, “if everything goes as planned, you’ll be finished with your testimony as early as … tomorrow.”

  Silence from Jack, which was confirmation.

  She waited, not wanting to ask it, until she couldn’t put it off any longer.

  “What happens then?”

  Jack cleared his throat, paused, and cleared it again. “You go back to Mount Adams and I go back into hiding. We all think that the danger to you will have passed by then. It’s probably passed now, especially if Kareem Gregory never knows how close we’ve gotten. And life goes on like it did before. For both of us.”

  “Kareem Gregory?” A nice name, as long as she didn’t think too much about the man behind it. “You’ve never said his name to me before.”

  “Like you don’t know the name.” Amusement crinkled the edges of his eyes but never quite lit up his face. “Like you haven’t hit Google and learned everything you could about the case by now.”

  Damn straight, and she wouldn’t apologize for it. There was only so much knitting and twiddling of thumbs a person could do before her brain shriveled and died.

  Defiant, she shrugged and hitched up her chin. “I have to pass the time, don’t I? Crabby Patty and Billy Bob didn’t object when I sat down with my laptop yesterday. If you don’t like it, blame them.”

  “I’m not blaming anyone.” He hit her with that tone of quiet reproach, the one she hated so much because it made her feel like a slug trailing slime across the floor. “And everything isn’t a fight, so stop looking for one all the time.”