Beau (In the Company of Snipers Book 18)

by Irish Winters

  There was nothing she could do, so McKenna forced herself to think like Sanders. But hey, how about all the children I serve every day? Every last one of them has enriched my life in ways they’ll never know. She’d loved them both selfishly and selflessly. They’d been her substitutes for the children she’d never planned to have.

  Instead of marching into motherhood as so many of her generation had, instead of shacking-up or marrying the first guy who asked, she’d chosen the safer path. She’d gone to college, studied hard, then marched onto medical school with the high and mighty goal of working miracles to save children’s lives and to help their mothers. To serve and protect every last one of them.

  So what if she’d only doctored and nursed other people’s kids? She’d never experienced a deep-seated biological need to have her own. Why should she? Even the best mothers had bad days and made horrible mistakes. They got impatient, overworked, and overtired. When they did, sometimes they lashed out, and occasionally, they hurt the ones they loved most—their children. Not McKenna. She’d never do that because she’d set herself apart and never planned to be a mother. That way she ensured she’d cause no harm to any child or mother. Ever. It was safer that way.

  “You’re much too quiet, my little dumpling,” Catalina murmured, her voice a slick, evil whisper that crept over McKenna’s skin in the dark like the belly of a cold-blooded snake.

  Tug. Tug. The wire forced McKenna’s chin a notch higher. Stretched her neck tighter. By then she could only stare at the wall above her headboard. She didn’t dare try to look at the wicked woman at the foot of her bed. Hell, she could barely see the ceiling. Her peripheral vision was that compromised with her neck forced up like it was. If she so much as arched her back, the wires laced across her body responded with sharp, stinging bites.

  But now, the air smelled of smoke and incense. Catalina kept humming something low and rumbling, almost chanting. What was that about?

  “What do you want?” McKenna whispered. “Why are you doing this? I’ve never hurt you.”

  The wire noose at her neck relaxed a tiny bit as the swish of the broomstick skirt told McKenna that Catalina was now at her right side. “Oh, but you have,” she crooned as she ran her fingertips over McKenna’s brow. “But that’s not why we’re here, is it?”

  “Then why” —McKenna gulped— “why are we here? What do you want from me?”

  “I want what you took from me, Dr. Fitzgerald, and since I can’t get that back, I’ve decided you’ll do. In exchange for your life, I need information. Ready to talk?”

  Montego had tortured Beau for information? That didn’t make sense. From what he’d told Alex, he woke already cuffed to a table and missing his finger. Where was the information gathering in torturing an unconscious man? McKenna blinked to keep her panic at bay. “What do you want to know?”

  The woman leaned too close to McKenna’s ear for comfort. “Tell me about Alex Stewart’s wife. Kelsey, isn’t it? You like her, don’t you? Is she a good mother? She’s really quite lovely, isn’t she? What does she like to eat? What restaurants does she frequent when her husband’s out of town? Where does she shop? When? Every day, or does she prefer evenings? Does she always take that precocious little girl with her when she leaves her monstrosity of a house? Is that daughter ever alone? Does she sleep in her own room?”

  This was about hurting Kelsey. No way. McKenna would rather die than betray Alex or his sweet wife. Never Lexie. Those three were a genuine love story in motion. They deserved to live more than McKenna did. Thinking fast, she focused on Beau to keep the spotlight off them. “You mean Beau Jennings? You replaced him with me? He’s why I’m here? B-because he eluded you, and I helped him?”

  She received another motherly swipe over her forehead for that, and along with it came the sickening anise scent of black licorice. “I have no idea what you’re talking about but do keep talking. You’ll get there.”

  McKenna licked her lips, her mind pinging at the dire situation. This wasn’t about Beau? Then what? “I… I really don’t know anything about him. He was just a one-time patient, not even mine once the ambulance took him away. The only reason I was at Stewarts was because I was on call for my clinic’s acute care patients. I’m just a pediatrician.” Surely Catalina knew Beau required specialized orthopedic surgery after what she’d done to him, not a sucker from McKenna’s candy drawer. “I take care of babies. Mothers.”

  “I like babies,” Catalina whispered encouragingly, rubbing her chin over McKenna’s cheek, her breath heavy with the scent of licorice. “Then start taking care of this little girl” —she tapped her fingernail to the center of McKenna’s forehead— “or mommy’s going to be upset, and you know what will happen. Tell me about Kelsey Stewart, child. Tell me about her little girl. Lexie, right? Does she talk yet? Does she cry? Tell me everything you know.”

  Damn! I’m back in the closet, only this woman’s crazier than Mom.

  Chapter Seventeen

  It was a good thing the cabbie ended up being a stubborn old fart. He was right where Beau left him, the engine running, and his head tilted out his window in that quiet, I-know-better-than-you way that Beau was beginning to recognize. And respect.

  “Need a ride?” the kindly gentleman asked.

  “I do,” Beau admitted easily. He didn’t often make friends, but this guy had gotten under his skin just by being nice.

  “Hand still hurt?”

  Beau nodded. Hurt, nothing. The sensation in it had gone from a tingling numbness to hot-out-of-the-furnace throbbing. Maybe even glowing under all that gauze.

  He’d stored his pistol once he’d left the crime scene, but that last leap over the wall hadn’t done his injury any good. Despite his leather jacket, he shivered. Yeah, he knew he was feverish, and stupid for being out here. But cradling his arm and damaged hand no longer staved off the pain. He knew now why wolves chewed their paws off when they stepped in those vicious steel-toothed traps. Missing a limb couldn’t hurt any worse.

  Oh, wait. Scratch that. A missing finger was what started all this.

  After Beau dropped his tired ass onto the back seat of the cab, he met his benefactor’s questioning gaze in the rearview. It was time to get personal. “What’s your name?”

  The guy stretched one arm over the seat to shake hands as he grinned a truly face-splitting smile. “It’s Ethiopian, and quite long. Most Americans find it too hard to pronounce. You may call me Marcus.”

  Beau clamped onto the cabbie’s long-fingered grip. “I know a Mark. Good name. Good guy. Thanks for sticking around, Marcus. I’m Beau Jennings.”

  “You are a soldier,” he said quietly, his gaze lowered as if he had something to fear.

  “Was. Not anymore,” Beau assured him. “Former Army. How’d you know?”

  “By way you walk and how you hold your head up, Mr. Jennings. You are suffering, yet you still walk with purpose. You are a good man.”

  It’s funny how people see what they want. But Beau knew better. If anything, he walked alone, and he never let his guard down.

  “It is very late,” Marcus said.

  Beau shook his head at the implied question. “Got one more stop. I’ll go home then.” Maybe.

  “But you don’t look so good, son.”

  Son. Another word Beau craved but hadn’t heard much during his twenty-some years. Not unless son-of-a-bitch counted. He was no one’s son, just the bastard offspring of a two-bit pimp who ran his girls into the dirt, then demanded they clean up and be ready to debase themselves again the next morning, afternoon, whenever. Nothing to be proud of there.

  Instead of answering, he huffed out a weary breath, lowered his head, and pulled his cell from his jacket pocket to search online for Dr. Fitzgerald. Fitz. Interesting name for a pretty woman.

  A profile picture from a nearby family practice clinic popped up in his browser. Searching further, he located her home address and passed it over the seat. “This is wh
ere I need to go.”

  Marcus nodded, and the cab moved forward. It didn’t take more than five, six minutes to get to Fitzgerald’s street address. She lived in one of three apartments carved out of a rambling colonial hidden behind a cluster of birch trees, their barks gleaming white amidst the shadows.

  But Beau was beat, and he was stupid out of his mind for thinking he could find Montego all by himself. Or that she’d even come here.

  His hand throbbed all the way up his aching neck to the top of his pounding head. By now, there wasn’t a part of his body that didn’t cry for relief from this marathon day. He’d worked through plenty ops when he’d been sick or injured, but never in this much pain.

  The Army’s killer/hunter teams operated by twos. Always one shooter. Always one spotter. He’d worked with more than one team at a time, but he couldn’t recall once that he’d been singled out to go after a target alone. So, yeah. Stupid out of his mind, that was what he was.

  “I will wait for you,” the cabbie stated.

  Damn, the meter wasn’t running. This guy was working for free. That made Beau’s decision easier. “No need. I’m calling the game. Let’s head home.”

  “As you should,” Marcus agreed with a single nod. “It will be my privilege to bring you back to this very place tomorrow, if you would like to continue your quest.”

  Yeah, that’s me all right, a fuckin’ knight of the round table on a quest for the unholy grail and the witch who stole it along with my finger.

  “Nah.” Sighing, Beau stopped being a hero. He was wrong. Doc Fitz was right. She won. Fine by him. She’d kept arguing against Alex’s protection order, and really. How would Catalina Montego have known McKenna’s name, where she worked or where she lived? Montego wasn’t one of those clairvoyant killers in horror flicks out of Hollywood. Weary to his soul, Beau pointed toward the windshield and said, “Home.”

  “Very good,” Marcus murmured. “I will wake you when we arrive at your apartment building. Rest easy, my friend.”

  As if Beau could. Glancing into the night, he wondered what the hell he’d been thinking coming here. Doc Fitzgerald didn’t need protection. She was one of those lucky, pretty folks, the ones karma smiled on without them having to do a damned thing but rise and shine every morning. Yeah. She didn’t need rescuing.

  He’d almost convinced himself when a gallon of acid unleashed in his gut. “Wait,” blurted out of his mouth before he knew he’d spoken. There were no lights on the property. Not. A. One.

  Marcus eyed him in the rearview. “You are going,” was all he said.

  “Won’t be long,” Beau replied, his hand on the door handle.

  “Is no problem,” Marcus said as he turned the engine off. “I wait. I will be here.”

  Beau clapped the old guy’s shoulder before he bailed. “Thanks, man. I’ll make it worth your while when I get back. But lock your doors okay? Be safe.”

  The older gentleman smiled. “Trust me, I will do that. For you.”

  On his feet again, Beau adjusted to the searing pain enveloping the left side of his body. If motion was lotion, sitting on his ass was atrophy. From hipbone to the top of his hard head, every last muscle felt like unholy shit stacked steaming hot in his work boots. But this was what Rangers did. They bucked up and they got the ugly jobs done, no matter the personal cost. Gritting his teeth, he ventured forth.

  Except for the single gas lamp on at the curb, no lights glimmered from any windows in the house ahead. The first apartment he came to wasn’t Fitzgerald’s number, though. He kept going. Skirting the shrubbery lining the walkway that led to the rear of the building and parking lot, he palmed his pistol once more, the barrel down, the weapon hidden against his black jeans.

  The next apartment wasn’t hers, either. No, Doc Fitz had to live all the way around back. Not smart as dark and quiet as it was. A place like this should’ve been lit with industrial outdoor security lights. Motion detectors. Something. But just like the Ringers, Doc Fitz had probably put her faith in what? Another hollow-core door that wouldn’t keep shit out?

  Grumbling to himself for no reason other than this day sucked, Beau kept going. He didn’t care what people did these days, or if they took sufficient precautions to protect themselves. Their safety was none of his business, and it wouldn’t matter if it was. Most people thought they knew everything. There was no sense talking to them, much less educating them. The first words out of their big mouths were always, “I know.” Like hell they did.

  His boot had no more than settled on the stairs leading to McKenna’s door, when Beau’s gut twisted up a storm. It hit him then. The lights on this entire property were all off for a reason. He approached with extreme caution, his pistol up, his head canted, and his senses flared to detect what the hell was happening inside the house. Palming McKenna’s front door, it opened inward. The damned thing had been left unlocked.

  A rush of adrenaline flooded Beau as he ducked inside, then closed the door quietly behind him. The place was dark, but he wasn’t alone. A lone female voice spoke from the hallway at his right, heavy with—something. Drugs, maybe. Alcohol? The voice was odd and sing-songy, the pitch uncommonly low. Guttural. Chanting about revenge, revenge, revenge. Then about love and sisters and family. About blood being thicker than life. Weird shit like that. Had to be Catalina Montego.

  Stealthily, with his senses strung tight, Beau advanced down the hall. Now was the moment he’d planned for. He could end her. Finish her reign of terror. There was nothing to stop him, and he was just that good. She needed to die and more than anything, he wanted to kill her. Until McKenna whimpered, “S-stop it. Please, stop.”

  What the fuck?

  “Please! No more!”

  And enough! Kicking the door in, Beau bellowed, “Freeze, bitch!” into the dark. He could barely make out McKenna stretched out on the bed, her arms splayed wide, when a club came out of nowhere and pulverized his injured arm. That couldn’t have hurt worse if lightning had struck, yet he didn’t let loose of his pistol. Instead he fired one shot into the dark behind the door where that blow came from.

  “I’m here to kill you!” he growled as the Ranger inside him stepped up to the plate to finish the job.

  “Then try!” Montego cackled like some ghoul with a death wish.

  Consider it granted. It was hard to track her in the black-as-sin room, though. Montego attacked again, ramming her head into his gut. Not smart. That put her close and personal, and—

  SMACK! He pistol-whipped the bitch, but did that slow her down? Not so much. Growling, she launched again, but caught the heel of his palm with her nose instead. Crunch. Squish!

  Beau curled his bandaged fingers and punched her full in the face with his bad hand, then backhanded her with his other hand, while angling to protect his now throbbing injury, the one he shouldn’t have led with. Damned thing was buzzing like a son-of-a-bitchin’ hornet nest. Maybe hitting her with that hand wasn’t such a good idea. Of course, Montego knew his weakness, damn her, but she wasn’t getting a second chance at it.

  She dropped to the floor, but he’d expected that. Old dogs and old tricks. Instead of sweeping him with that lame roundhouse kick, he stomped her thigh.

  An oddly masculine “Oomph!” rewarded his effort, but at that point, Beau’s only plan was to kill her. Aiming his pistol, he took another shot at where he thought Montego crouched at floor level, when—

  Shit!

  She had one thing he didn’t though. An LED flashlight. With one click, he was blind and running on pure Ranger instinct. She thought that chicken shit move gave her the upper hand? Guess again, bitch. He’d had years of experience in the dark tunnels and storm sewers beneath Las Vegas. Beau Jennings knew dark. She was not getting away.

  He fired at the first rustle to his right. When she growled again like a psycho, the noise came low at his left. He dived after it, and oh, yeah, the bitch had hair. Grabbing a handful of the braid with his free hand, whi
le still holding his pistol, he jerked her forward, then banged his forehead into her face.

  When she grabbed for his left forearm, Beau knew what she intended. No way. Not my injured hand again.

  Head-banging her, he jerked her braid back, meaning to tear that sucker out by the roots. She let loose a bloodcurdling roar instead of the girly scream he’d expected. This bitch put up one helluva fight, clawing his face, growling like a beast in that low, guttural voice. Angular and wiry, the woman was every bit as strong as a man. Except for her hair, there was nothing feminine about her. What the hell was she, a demon from Hell? Sure sounded like it.

  Jerking her head back, he caught a knee to his groin. Should’ve seen that feminine trick coming. Damn, it hurt. Yeah, the bitch was vicious and cunning.

  McKenna cried out. The outright terror in her voice distracted Beau. He let go of the braid. But instead of seizing the moment and killing him, Montego bit his bandaged hand again. Like the miserable spawn of Satan she was, that bite felt as if a mouthful of serrated teeth landed on his reattached finger. He dropped to his knees. The pain. The agony. The bitch!

  By the time he could draw a breath mere seconds later, the bedroom door was wide open. Beau jumped to his feet, dizzy but gunning for blood. She would not get away this easy. Not this time. “I’ll kill you!” he roared at her, blinded by rage.

  A sudden draft came back to him, and he knew damned well a door or window had been opened. He followed, cursing and flipping wall switches as he went, but not lighting shit. Of course not. She’d cut the main power lines. Damned, evil woman.

  Smart enough to know the wall switch for McKenna’s gas fireplace wouldn’t work, Beau didn’t waste time trying. Instead, he cranked the valve on the wall beside the fireplace hearth, hit the pilot switch, and poof. Just like the Good Book said, God created light.