Joker Joker (The Deuces Wild Series Book 2)

by Irish Winters

  He scanned the other end of the hall. More of the same. The officers followed his every move, as he did theirs. One could never be too careful. Dropping to a vacant chair opposite the officers, he dug into Isaiah’s bag to see what the guy had left for him.

  Well, what do you know? The latest tactical vest out of McCormack Industries. Damn. Tate tugged it out of the bag. The vest was lightweight. Better yet, it had built-in pockets filled with... Oh man, Isaiah thought of everything! Excited now, Tate reached one arm over his shoulder and stripped out of his shirt right there in the hall. It raised a few eyebrows, but he donned the vest and quickly redressed before anyone but the surprised officers saw him.

  “You never know,” he told them. “You might need one of these. They’re top of the line.”

  “You go ahead,” the one on Tate’s left replied. “We’re not SWAT.”

  Tate would’ve argued, but that was a discussion better left for another day.

  “Damn it!” The sharp clatter of a mop handle hitting the floor, drew his attention back to the poor cleaning woman. He caught sight of her backside disappearing into a patient’s room, two doors down. A wisp of smoke curlicued out of the room to the ceiling, setting off the smoke alarm.

  Lights flashed from overhead panels while the alarm blared. Tate righted his chair, the two officers on their feet by then, on their way to investigate. One took position between Tate and the smoking room, looking both ways while his partner entered the room, his hand on his pistol.

  “Fire!” someone else screamed from the room three doors farther down. “To your stations!”

  Whatever that meant. Nurses scurried down the halls like bees from a hive, speeding to the vacant wheelchairs and the row of walkers lined against the wall. Winslow’s police protection was nowhere in sight.

  The poor thing was out cold, her bare head tucked under her pillow, no doubt to keep warm. She hadn’t changed back into her hospital gown to sleep though, just the clothes Keegan had bought her. Probably a good thing if they needed to evacuate.

  Just then, Tucker bellowed in Tate’s earpiece, his words choppy and incoherent through the blaring alarm. “Say again?” Tate ordered even as he bent to lift Winslow into his arms to take her to safety. More garble Tate couldn’t make sense of.

  “Mmm. What’s wrong?” Winslow asked sleepily, her forehead wrinkled. “What’s all the noise?”

  “Fire drill,” Tate assured her. “Don’t worry. I’ve got you.”

  The lights went out, plunging the room into darkness until the dim, emergency lighting flickered on from the hall. By then, a shadow lurked at the door. “Put her down,” Hattie Beauregard ordered.

  Tate would’ve argued but for that Beretta pointed at him.

  “Mom?” Despite what she now knew about her mother, seeing Joyce like this astonished Winslow to her soul. “What are you doing here?”

  “Finishing what I started a long time ago,” her mother bit out, jerking the gun in her hand at the bed. “I said put her down, Higgins. Back on the bed. Do it or I shoot her where you stand.”

  Tate had no choice. Winslow sank to the mattress, away from the warmth of his body.

  “Why are you doing this?” She needed to know as she scrambled to her knees.

  “Your gun, Higgins,” Joyce bit out. “I know you’ve got one. Nice and easy.”

  He unholstered the pistol under his left arm and lifted it high, pinching its grip between his index finger and thumb. “Don’t hurt her,” he warned as he laid it flat on the mattress.

  “Why can’t you leave us alone?” Winslow cried.

  Joyce cocked her head, her eyes still trained on Tate. “Oh, there’s an us now. How pathetic. The bodyguard falls in love with the poor little girl, is that how this cliché ends, Agent Higgins? What were you two going to do, live happily ever after?”

  He grunted, his legs pressed against the bed frame. “It’s about time you told your daughter who you really are, Hattie.”

  Winslow jerked her eyes from Tate to her mother. “What does he mean?”

  Raking her fingers through her longhaired disguise, Joyce tossed it aside as her gun spat a round, startling Winslow with the loud report.

  “Bitch,” hissed out of Tate as he slapped his right hand to his chest.

  “Mom! Stop!” Winslow shrieked, holding onto his elbow to keep him upright.

  “At least tell her before you kill us,” he growled at her mother. “Be honest for once with your daughter.”

  Instead of answering, her mother’s wrist flexed. Tate jerked Winslow into his arms, curving his body around her as another round boomed. Winslow felt the impact hit him in the back, nearly dropping him to his knees. She twisted to grab hold of him, to shift him onto the bed with her, but he took a knee.

  “There’s no way… you’re leaving this hospital alive,” he told her mom. “My men are on their way.” Groaning, he leaned into the bed frame, bleeding from front and back.

  “Stop it, Mom!” Winslow screamed, on the floor beside him now, clutching his belt to support him. “You’re killing him!” Frantic now, she smoothed one palm over the chest wound, needing to block every drop of blood from leaving his body. But bright red blood soaked his back, too, and she only had two hands. What do I do?

  “Shut up, Winslow! You had one thing to do, you little tramp, just be in your room where you should’ve been, but no.” Joyce still aimed at Tate. “You ran away like the helpless little girl you always were and always will be. Well, I’ve had enough babysitting.”

  Winslow’s eyes opened in shock. “W-what are you talking about?”

  “She set you up,” Tate growled, trembling so hard that the bed frame rattled. “She never intended for you to go to any prom, Winslow. She planned for Ike to kidnap you before the TV crew showed—”

  The gun roared again, and Tate fell backward, his bloody fingers clutching for Winslow’s arm as his head touched down.

  “Mom!” Winslow screamed. “Stop, Mom! Please stop!”

  His leg spasmed, blood gushing from the hole in his mid-thigh.

  Winslow angled her body around his sweaty body, cocooning his head on her lap to protect him from the vicious woman she no longer recognized. “Don’t die,” she whimpered. “I love you. Please, hang on.”

  “Get on your feet. Now, Winslow,” Hattie ordered, “or so help me—”

  “Or what?” Winslow yelled, not bothering to turn around to face her. “You’ll kill me, too? Like you’ve been doing all these years? Just do it already!” She squeezed her eyes shut and bowed her head to Tate’s, prepared to die with him if that’s what today came down to.

  But the door opened behind her and, sure that Isaiah and Tucker were coming to Tate’s rescue, her gaze jerked to it. But no. It was Dr. Bly’s nurse who’d closed the door, her eyes darting all over the room. “You’d better make this quick, Sis. You’re running out of time.”

  “S-sisters?” Winslow couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You’re sisters?” No wonder she’d taken Tate’s cell phone at Bly’s clinic. She knew all along!

  “Told you she was dumber than shit,” Hattie growled out of the side of her mouth. “Now get up off your ass, Winslow. You and I have a road trip to take, and I’m not missing it.”

  “To Oregon? So you can kill me?” That made no sense. “Just leave me here.” So I can die with Tate.

  “No, you little witch, to Texas, so I can finally get what’s coming to me!” Hattie shrieked.

  Texas? “Bullshit! Who are you?”

  That earned Winslow a murderous glare. “I’m the woman who’s tired of living a lie for you! Now do what you’re told!”

  Winslow no longer cared what this maniac wanted. Tate hadn’t made a sound since he’d passed out, but his blood was everywhere. On the linoleum beneath him. On her hands. It was sweeter smelling than she expected blood to be, but her hands and fingers were thick with it. “You killed him,” she cried, her tears trickling over his cheek.

  “Come on, bab
y,” Dr. Bly’s nurse said as she tugged Winslow’s elbow. “We don’t have a lot of time. Those four fires I set won’t last much longer.”

  “Who are you?” Winslow jerked away from this liar.

  The gray-haired woman nodded at Joyce. “I’m Sue Ellen, Hattie’s older sister. Now scoot before the firemen get here.”

  Again with the clutching fingers! Winslow scraped this crazy woman’s hand off her bicep, her eyes riveted to the other liar she’d once called Mom. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  To her sister, Hattie bit out, “You got the bin ready?”

  Sue Ellen nodded. “It’s in the hall. Don’t worry, there’s plenty of smoke if we get moving now.”

  “Get up,” Hattie ordered Winslow. “There’s one more thing I need you to do.”

  “Bullshit,” Winslow shot back at her. “I’m staying here, so do your worst.”

  Hattie’s arm stretched, the pistol now aimed directly at Winslow’s face. “Don’t think I won’t, you damned crybaby.”

  “All these years. I trusted you. I loved you,” Winslow told her.

  “You don’t know the meaning of the word!” flew out of Hattie’s mouth like a dagger. “I’ve wasted my whole life waiting for this moment, well, now it’s mine. On your feet, baby girl,” she sneered. “If I’d known what a sniveling coward you’d grow into, I’d have left you where I found you!”

  “You… you found me?” Winslow asked, her voice as hollow as this conversation sounded. “I’m not your daughter? Then whose am I?”

  Bly’s nurse whined. “Jesus Christ, we’ve got to go now.”

  The gun in Hattie’s hand clicked. “Get off the floor, Winslow, or I blow your boyfriend’s head off. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

  “No, don’t.” Winslow whimpered as she eased her body out from under Tate. Resting his head gently to the floor, she lifted to her feet. She couldn’t take the chance on Hattie shooting him again. He might yet be alive. “I’ll go with you if you promise you won’t hurt him.”

  “Then do it!” Hattie hissed, jerking her head at the door. “There’s a laundry bin in the hall. Climb in and shut your mouth.”

  Winslow took one last look at Tate. His lips moved. Risking all, she sank to her knees at his side, her ear to his lips, daring to hope. “I’m here, Tate. What?” she asked, tearfully.

  One word whispered out of him. “T-take.”

  Not understanding, she clutched his bloody hand to her breast, her heart breaking. “Take what?”

  He squeezed her fingers, pushing something into her palm as he breathed out, “My… heart.”

  “Enough of this!” Hattie bitched, the butt of her weapon lifted over Winslow’s head.

  Being pistol-whipped hurt.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Tate dragged himself to his feet, sucking in a long, pain-filled breath that didn’t come close to filling his lungs, not with that bullet snagged in his vest. Kevlar might keep him alive, but damn. It took a toll on what had to be a broken rib. The fake blood bags were a nice, deceitful touch. Still hurt like a mother though.

  His thigh was another matter, but he didn’t have time to waste on it. Hattie was gone, Winslow with her. Planting his palms to the bedrail, he shook his head to clear the buzz. Another one of those details, and the only one he’d insisted on, was still in play. Isaiah could track Winslow psychically, while FBI Central tracked the self-sticking GPS chip Tate had stealthily smoothed between her shoulder blades.

  Winslow wouldn’t get far.

  Recovering his pistol, he holstered it and headed into the hall. Stumbling, he cleared the door, still dizzy. Smoke filled the halls, stinging his eyes and nose. Orange security lights flashed overhead while yellow emergency lighting lent the scene a surreal horror-movie quality. No doctors or nurses in sight. That much was good. They’d gotten out. They were safe.

  The two police officers were missing, not a good sign. Which way to go?

  This attack had been well-planned coming on the heels of Bly’s first interview like it did. Tate didn’t know how Hattie knew where her daughter was, only that she now had Winslow. He tapped his earpiece. An update from Tucker would be damned good. Even a psychic one.

  “On our way back to you,” Isaiah answered as if he’d read Tate’s mind. Duh.

  “She’s got Winslow!” Tate was pissed, disoriented, but thankful for his psychic ability. “Check parking. Ground level. Don’t let her get away.”

  “Are you injured?”

  “I’m good.”

  “Liar,” Eden hissed. “He’s been shot three times, Boss, chest, back, and thigh, and if you don’t stop that bleed in your thigh right now, Agent Higgins, you’re going to die. Paramedics will be on your floor in ten.”

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. The problem with not blocking psychics? Everyone’s got an opinion.

  Turning left toward the direction of the freight elevator, he palmed the wall, fighting the demanding tilt of vertigo combined with blood loss. Eden was right. The round in his thigh might end his plan to rescue Winslow before he got to it.

  Stopping just long enough to pull his holster off, he yanked his shirt over his head, then tore it in half. Using one piece to tourniquet his thigh, he cinched it extra tight, knotting it while he walked, his holster swinging against his calf. The Kevlar vest remained in place. The holster went back on. He bunched the rest of the shirt over his mouth to keep from breathing the fumes.

  He hoped Hattie was headed for the ground-level parking garage like he’d thought, but his ears stayed tuned for the thwack-thwack-thwack of rotor slap just in case she had more help.

  Hulking shadows loomed through the smoke. Firemen? “Boss!” Tate called out. “Here!”

  Tucker emerged from the hazy gloom like the prow of a pissed off Navy destroyer, tall, wide, and bristling with armament. He had two pistols drawn and the butt stock of a rifle looming over his shoulder. Another pistol was strapped to his thigh. Penetrating dark eyes took immediate assessment of Tate’s ragged condition, but not once did Tucker hint at leaving him behind. “Which way’d she go?”

  “To the parking garage. She’s got Winslow,” Tate repeated. “I’m going down. Now.”

  Worry lined Isaiah’s forehead. “You look like shit, man.”

  “I feel like it,” Tucker pushed back at him. “But that won’t stop me.”

  Back in the elevator they went. Tucker leading the charge, Tate limping along and Isaiah on his six.

  “What’d she say?” Tucker asked as he hit the button to ground level. “Hattie.”

  “Bang. Bang. You’re dead,” Tate grunted. Isn’t that obvious? “You don’t think she’s got a helicopter on stand-by, do you?” He didn’t think she had that kind of resources, but this op had been one surprise after another.

  “Wouldn’t matter if she did. The chopper pad’s over at the main complex,” Tucker informed. “I’ve got men watching it.”

  “So she wasn’t aiming at Winslow when she fired?” Isaiah couldn’t seem to let it go.

  Tate deflected. “She’s taking her to Texas.” Over my dead body, which might not be the best comeback at the moment.

  “Did she know who her mother was before this?” Isaiah again. Damn, the man was a worrier.

  “She does now.”

  “What’s so great about Texas?” Tucker bit out.

  Tate couldn’t stand there and wait one more second for the slow-as-shit elevator to engage. “Jesus H. Christ! Do I look like fucking CNN?” With that, he one-eightied out of the metal compartment that wasn’t taking him anywhere, and he left Tucker and Isaiah behind. He charged the stairwell door, not wasting time Winslow didn’t have. Wounded didn’t mean shit, but losing her did.

  Slamming the door open, he vaulted the stairwell banister and dropped to a slammed crouch on the landing one level down. He took the next flight the same hard way—without steps or caution. Without one lick of common sense, either. His thigh seized up at the third iteration, but he’d expected it would a
s bad as he’d been hit. Traumatized muscles did that when you played Superman. One more time, he free fell to ground level, jacked out of breath and limping like a zombie, but—God, please—not out of time.

  Palming the final door open and sweating up a storm, he took a deep breath of cold, concrete air and assessed the way forward. The garage was well lit. Painted gray. Concrete columns stood guard every fifty feet or so. Overhead lighting. Not many shadows. Physician parking along the nearest wall to his right. Red exit signs to his left. No sign of movement. No Hattie.

  Despite his injury, the hunter in Tate roared to life. Mama Bear was out there laying for him and killing for sport. A man-eater was by far the most dangerous predator on the planet. Who cared? He’d hunted bigger and badder bears than Hattie before.

  Gritting his teeth against the throbbing pain sending shockwaves up his thigh, he scanned the parked audience of cars, blinking to see past the rising blur in his head. The garage walls seemed to heave in and out, expanding then collapsing like a living, breathing thing. Yeah. Blood loss would soon drop him where he stood. Things had to happen fast.

  A mini-truck roared past him, but the thin-as-rails African American male in the driver’s seat wasn’t Hattie. Three stalls from the end of the opposing row, a red Mini Cooper’s rear taillights beckoned that a reverse was in process. Not the kind of car he was looking for, but okay. Hattie drove a Chevy Spark. Maybe she’d swapped it for something just as economical.

  When the vehicle’s driver maneuvered a K-turn and headed for him, he recognized its driver, the cleaning woman. Coincidence? No way.

  Tate blocked the only exit and ceased worrying about a chopper swooping in and saving Hattie’s dumb ass. Stepping out in the open, he declared war, the barrel of his pistol pointed up—for now—to show he meant business, that she needed to stop. The gray-haired woman floored it instead, that sissy car lurching forward like it had a dog in this fight.

  Tate put one through her left front tire to slow her, then another through the right tire instead of her eye. Don’t make me kill you.