Beau (In the Company of Snipers Book 18)

by Irish Winters

  ‘But I want to be the one to end her. I’m the one she hurt, not them.’

  “Let it go,” Alex muttered as if he’d read Beau’s mind. “McKenna’s worth a million Montegos.”

  Which was the first time Beau heard what Alex didn’t say. Kelsey meant more to Alex than anything else, maybe even more than The TEAM. Somehow, that insight helped.

  “You’re right,” he admitted.

  Canting his head, Alex sent him that look. “When we land we’ll still be a mile or so from the farmhouse. Justin’ll drop us far enough out that we won’t raise suspicion. But we’re going in hot. You take point. You know the rules. No collateral damage. We do this quick and—”

  “We do this right,” Beau finished.

  “Damned straight.”

  The LZ ended up being dead center of a farmer’s meticulously plowed field, one click west of the deserted farmhouse, where, oh by the way, that Toyota sedan sat parked on the far side of the home, away from the road. The pilot touched down, and in seconds, Beau and Alex were boots on the ground and running for the house.

  Beau ran between the furrows, careful not to put his big feet on any of the tender sprouts breaking through the soil. Farmers were part of that group of hard-working people he respected. This day wasn’t about making trouble for the little guy just because he owned a field.

  The farmhouse itself was a leftover relic from the forties or fifties, maybe earlier. Its clapboard siding was weathered and gray, not a speck of paint on them. What had once been an asphalt-shingled roof now revealed the bare skeleton of roof joists. There was no glass in the window panes. A string of straggly cottonwoods and overgrown shrubbery allowed Beau and Alex to get close to the home without being seen. With their backs against the western wall, Alex ordered Beau to breach the rear entry, while he took the main.

  Beau nodded his agreement but paused when he nearly stumbled over a storm cellar at the rear northwest corner. Interesting. Every type of weed, thistle, and Virginia creeper in the state concealed the rest of the derelict stone foundation. Yet these two slanted doors were both clear of debris, in fact, looked downright tidy. Someone had recently accessed those doors.

  Dropping to one knee, he examined the fresh prints leading up to the door. Definite heel marks from a woman’s dress shoe, another from an athletic sole. Not a boot. Lighter tread marks. Most likely not left by a male. Males tended to be heavier. Their feet bigger.

  “Got a situation back here, Boss,” Beau whispered into his mic. “Located an exterior cellar door. Looks used recently. I’ve got fresh shoe impressions. Also recent. More than one set.”

  “Copy that,” came back to him, then a huff, and, “I’m inside. Watch your step. The floor’s not stable. Not sure the roof is, either.”

  “I’m blocking the cellar doors, just in case,” Beau said as he slid the dried-up, fractured piece of two-by-four he’d found in the weeds through the two door handles to prevent escape. With Alex already inside, he hustled up the back steps and entered the deserted home.

  With his index finger raised to his lips, Alex stared across the cavernous hole in what had once been the kitchen floor. Antique appliances still lined the wall on one side, a rusted enamel sink and a sideboard lined the other.

  Beau cocked his head, listening to the sounds of the relic. The quiet creak of aged lumber against framework and beams. The breeze whistling through the space between the slatted siding and the open roof. The rustle of leaves, insects, or vermin inside the home.

  Whoever lived here had left in a hurry. Dusty knickknacks still lined the kitchen window over the sink, though all were on their sides. Tattered remnants of curtains hung from the curtain rod. Hell, a picture of the Last Supper still hung on the grimy wall. Wallpaper with roses that had once been red or pink instead of gray, barely showed through the dirt that had blown in over the years.

  All walls were water-stained. Debris from the roof and upper level now lay in a jumbled mess in the basement, which meant the storm cellar had been built separately from the rest of the home. Better yet, the cellar was now accessible only through the double doors out back. The barricaded doors. Margo Heller, aka Bambi Lynch, had painted herself into a corner. Sweet.

  “We’ve got her, Boss,” Beau murmured. “She’s trapped.”

  Muted voices lifted up from the recesses of the cellar, but no specific words were discernible. It definitely sounded like two women arguing. Beau canted his head, listening for McKenna’s voice.

  Alex signaled for him to circle back outside.

  Beau nodded, message received, and quickly returned outside to the cellar doors.

  “On my mark,” Alex murmured over his earpiece. “Three…”

  Quietly, Beau slid the two-by-four out of the handles.

  “Two…”

  Beau secured his pistol in the holster under his left arm in order to grip the right door handle and…

  “One.”

  He flung the door open, quickly retrieved his pistol from its holster, and dropped down the rickety steps onto an earthen floor ten feet below. Automatically, his weapon zeroed down on two women. McKenna sat with her arms restrained behind her back on a chair positioned behind a flood lamp, her face lit with shock to see him. The other woman jumped up from the stool in front of McKenna.

  “It’s over, Lynch,” Beau bellowed, his arms outstretched as the laser dot from his scope targeted her forehead.

  At the same precise time as he shouted, Alex landed silently in a crouch at the far side of the earthen room, his pistol up and also trained on the scene.

  As if sensing Beau’s intention to distract Lynch, McKenna screamed, “Don’t shoot her!”

  “Why not?” he yelled back to make Lynch think he was the only one she had to deal with. She had yet to glance Alex’s way. Smart move, Boss.

  “Because she’s sick just like my mom was. She needs help. Please, Beau, give her a—”

  For that McKenna earned a vicious slap from Lynch that left a stream of blood trickling out of her mouth. “I am not sick, and neither was Aurora!”

  “Do that again, bitch, and I’ll drop you where you stand,” Beau promised the older woman. He didn’t need two hands to make that wish come true.

  “Oh yeah, well take one more step, dumbass, and this place goes up in smoke,” Lynch promised him right back, her voice shrill as a detonator appeared in her left hand. “Did you think I came down here without a backup plan? You’re as dumb as Sanders!”

  “So you’re ready to die for what you believe? About Aurora and Sanders? About McKenna? Who by the way, was just a little girl when her mother went Mommy Dearest on her, whipped her, and stuffed her in a fucking closet.” Beau took a step forward, his gaze flitting over Lynch’s shoulder to his silent partner in the shadows.

  Still unaware of Alex, McKenna whined, “Don’t, Beau. Please, don’t.”

  “Won’t if I can help it, baby,” Beau promised as he put another boot sideways to the ground, drawing closer. Drawing Lynch’s attention to him, away from McKenna and Alex.

  “Ha! That’s what he calls you? Baby? You’re no baby. You’re Sanders kid, a bitch!”

  Without taking her eyes off Beau, Lynch slapped McKenna again while she aimed the detonator in her other hand like a pistol to keep him at bay.

  She still didn’t realize Alex was also in the room, though still secreted in the dark and as silent as Death itself. Most criminals would’ve been more than a little worried about Beau’s scope marking their foreheads. They might’ve put their hands up and begged to be taken into custody instead of shot. The laser dot all by itself was an overwhelmingly successful law enforcement tool. The promise of death got most idiots to reconsider their plans.

  It didn’t seem to work on Lynch.

  “Please, Beau,” McKenna pleaded. “Bambi’s my aunt. My mom’s sister and—”

  Alex took two silent steps forward, put his pistol to the back of Lynch’s head, and skillfully as
sumed control of the detonator. He grunted, then tossed it at Beau. “It’s a TV remote.” At which point he jerked Lynch to her knees while Beau ran to McKenna.

  “How many times am I going to have to save you from yourself?” he chided.

  Breathing hard, she flung herself into his arms the moment her hands were free. “How many times are you going to run away from me?”

  She had him there, but now was not the time for that discussion. He nodded, his weapon still in his right hand against her back, while he circled his wounded hand around her shoulders to hold her steady. “Deep breath. It’s over,” he said even as he kept an eye on the crazy woman in the room.

  Bambi Lynch started laughing then. A hysterical, demented cackle that lifted chills up Beau’s spine. “It’s not over. It’s just begun! Here! Now! You don’t know what you’ve done, you stupid, stupid men!”

  Beau looked at Alex. Alex looked at Beau. Like highly trained covert operators the world over, an uncanny glimmer of awareness flashed between them. This was a trap. Not wasting another second, Beau tossed McKenna over his shoulders in a fireman’s hold and ran for the exit.

  He made it to the top step, when—BLAM! A flaming vortex of fire and percussion blew him and McKenna out of the cellar and twenty feet across the yard. In the violent maelstrom that ensued, Beau ended on top of McKenna, thank you Jesus. He’d twisted his body and ended shielding her head within the crook of his neck, shoulder, and bicep. She was the important one. She had to live.

  Shards of twisted lumber rained down, hammering them like a bizarre wind from hell. With fire and brimstone. With Death. Smoke seared his eyes and nose, and still he hunkered over McKenna, determined that she would walk away from this catastrophe. This was why he’d been born, for this singular moment and the supreme task of saving this one woman. She was the giver of life. It seemed a fair trade-off. A sinner for a saint.

  A jolting burn pierced his left side, pinning him to the ground, and still Beau took the brunt of what followed the explosion. By then his ears rang. His nose bled. Possibly his eyes were bleeding, too. Either that or he was bawling his eyes out. But if life had taught Beau Jennings anything, it was that he was no quitter. He held fast, and he held true to the only one who mattered in this diabolical nightmare. It sure as hell wasn’t Lynch. Not Alex, either. Only the woman who saved children.

  At last, the dragon’s breath behind him abated, and things stopped falling out of the sky. Beau lifted his head with a groan, needing to see how or if his boss and Lynch had survived. Only Alex lay just feet away, his hands covering the back of his head. He sent Beau one of those tough guy chin nods that he was okay. But there was no sign of Bambi Lynch. Damn. What a shame.

  Sweating like a beast with a new kind of pain to deal with, Beau dipped his grimy forehead to McKenna’s. “You okay, baby?”

  She craned her neck to see beyond him, then placed both palms to his chest and tried to shove him up and off. “My aunt. You see her? Did she make it out?”

  “Not so fast,” he growled, the flaming burn in his side a hundred times worse than waking up to a severed finger.

  “You’re bleeding!”

  Like he didn’t know? “Happens,” he told her easily, sure this was the end of the road for him.

  Jesus, it had been a long day. Whatever shrapnel nailed Beau’s back and dug into his side hurt, like a mother. Nausea climbed up his throat at what his body endured. Shadows danced at his peripheral, threatening to take him down with them. Back to Hell. That was where he belonged. In Hell with Bambi Lynch, her insane sisters, and hopefully, that witch Montego.

  ‘Jesus,’ he prayed. ‘Please let the guys on my team kill her today. She really needs to die.’

  “Help!” McKenna cried out, half-holding Beau, half-pushing out from beneath him. “Alex, help!”

  “Son-of-a-bitch,” Alex hissed quietly as he scrambled to his feet and knelt over his wingman yet again. “You took a damned big splinter to your back, Beau. It went through you like a spear. Hold still. Help’s on its way.” He didn’t sound too good, his voice winded and raw. But he sounded a helluva lot better than Beau felt.

  “Save McKenna,” he told his boss, losing blood and his grip on her.

  It was odd, though. She hadn’t yet asked after her Aunt Bambi, which meant she knew. Her aunt was gone. But even as he lay dying, Beau found McKenna’s loss impossibly—sad. Jesus, could anyone in this crazy, mixed-up world ever have enough family? Was the loss of just one aunt or uncle—just one little sister or a baby brother—ever acceptable? Beau didn’t think so. Which was why Maverick and every last man and woman on The TEAM had to live.

  “I’m here, Beau,” McKenna sobbed as, out from under him now, she tenderly eased his head onto her lap.

  Even that sweet gesture hurt like a mother. Yet face down and in excruciating pain, he couldn’t have been happier. This was the way a warrior died. In his woman’s arms. After he’d saved her. Not that Beau deserved her. He knew that for a fact he deserved no such thing.

  McKenna was never meant to end up with him. She was light and goodness and so much more. He was just one of those avenging angel types. As evil as the Devil. Born to wander, but never to rest. Here today. Gone tomorrow...

  “Don’t go,” she begged, her tears raining down. “Don’t leave me again. You promised.”

  He reached one hand—his good hand—to the top of her thigh one last time. Intertwining her fingers with his, she leaned over and kissed the side of his sweaty head. That was nice. Would’ve been nicer if he’d been face-up and could’ve kissed her sweet lips one last time. Not happening. He was shoving off for Valhalla.

  “Always meant to tell you,” he whispered, losing touch with the feeling in his left arm. Then his legs. “Always loved you… green eyes.”

  “Beau! Beau!”

  Chapter Fifty-One

  “She’s still alive?” Beau asked. Un-frickin’-believable.

  “Yeah, well…” A disgruntled Connor stretched one long leg out in front of him, his eyes on the floor. “Don’t worry. We’ll get Montego now that the Lynch sisters are out of our way.”

  He and Gabe had filled every bit of the spare space in the private hospital room with Starbucks cups and bags of breakfast junk food Beau wasn’t supposed to eat—but most certainly did. Usually, these guys were two long-legged, trash-talking, calorie eating machines. His kind of people. But both were particularly glum today.

  Once more consigned to GWU, Beau had spent the last hour listening to how Connor, Gabe, Lee, and Izza had been duped into thinking Catalina Montego had set up camp inside that half-finished mansion near Alex’s place. Instead, some homeless gal had been paid to dress like Catalina, to distract and mislead The TEAM. Imagine her shock and awe when Izza Maher stormed the place and ended the charade with the business end of her rifle.

  Which meant psycho-witch Montego was still on the loose. Probably laughing her guts out while she stalked yet another unwitting, male victim or watched The TEAM chase their tails. Alex and his agents had been brought low by one woman with a helluva grudge, and apparently, unlimited financing. Hell hath no fury and all that rot.

  But Beau still wasn’t convinced Montego’s current crime spree had anything to do with her brother’s death. Not after seeing the victims she’d housed in the hidden cells of that nasty warehouse. The nineteen survivors who’d fallen for the black widow spider were traumatized basket cases now. All were malnourished and ill. Every last one had been tortured, either by Montego or by each other, and all had a long struggle back to normalcy ahead of them.

  Interestingly, the FBI had also located an amazingly gruesome array of freezers in her basement of horrors. Talk about one bat-shit crazy woman. Just as she’d done in Congressman Ringer’s home, each freezer held plastic containers of forensic evidence that would take the FBI months to analyze. Maybe years. All were labeled in bold block letters with individual men’s names and dates beneath the word LOVER. Apparently in Catal
ina’s book, love really had to hurt.

  For now, Maverick still roomed down the hall from Beau’s room, which was a definite win/win. When folks came to visit Maverick, most stopped by to check on Beau, too. Even a handsome older couple from Ohio, Wade and Cadence Maverick, had stopped by for a quick, albeit intensely emotional visit.

  Beau thought he was safe until Maverick’s mother sat timidly at the edge of his bed and said ‘thank you’. But when she leaned over and carefully tugged him into her arms like his fake parents had never, ever done. Jesus. The needy little kid inside Beau lost it. He closed his eyes and just held on.

  “You saved my boy,” Maverick’s mom had cried, her tears damp and hot on his cheek, the desperate crush of her matronly arms around him the best thank-you he’d ever received. Because she was a real mom. A good mom. And Maverick was one lucky SOB. She didn’t need to say anything more, but then she’d ended with, “Thank you so very much, Mr. Jennings. I’ll never forget you. I don’t know what I’d’ve done if… How I’d’ve gotten through the rest of my life without…”

  It was all Beau could do to not break down and bawl like a baby. If he’d let Maverick die, life would’ve been mighty bleak for this incredibly sweet mother and father. They would’ve lost both their children, and Beau understood the level of hell to that kind of devastation.

  Yet not once had he thought of Maverick’s family when he’d done what he did. He hadn’t thought of China or Kyrie, either, and he should have. Because Jesus, those people were important to Maverick, more important than Beau would ever be. But in the middle of that godawful nightmare, he’d honestly only thought of himself. That he couldn’t—Just. Could. Not!—lose the first brother he’d ever had. Didn’t that make him a selfish bastard?

  Yet sitting there with Cadence Carson while teary-eyed Wade Carson looked on, and knowing that he’d saved Maverick’s folks from the despair he’d lived with since he’d lost AJ? Knowing that Kyrie and China didn’t have to wake up every morning without the husband and father they loved, make that adored? Yeah. For sure, Beau was no hero. But after all was said and done, he was good enough.