Fade to Midnight

by Shannon McKenna

  She scooted and scurried to keep up with his long strides. He made impatient noises while she rummaged in the silly little clutch bag for her keys. The keys dropped, with a rattling clink. He shoved her aside, picked them up and opened the door. "No lights," he growled.

  Great. Packing in the dark, with trembling hands, and a huge, impatient man breathing down her neck. She rushed around, grabbing things off her drawing table by feel, shoving them into her sketch bag.

  "Hey. Didn't we come for clothes?"

  "I need my sketchbooks!" she shot back. "I need pencils and pens and charcoal, and my pencil knife, and--"

  "Just get them," he said, resigned. "Don't waste time explaining."

  She tossed the art bag at his feet and dove into the closet, hissing unladylike expletives until she found the suitcase. Then she blundered into her bedroom, bumping her shins hard enough to make her gasp.

  "Two minutes over," he said.

  "I'm going as fast as I can in the dark!" She wrenched open drawers, grabbed stuff at random. Underwear, T-shirts, something that she hoped was a sweater. Next drawer, jeans. She kicked the ridiculous shoes off her abused feet, and pulled on her red high-tops, with a sigh of relief. Though they would look very special, with the dress.

  "Grab a coat, and let's go," Kev rapped out. "Now."

  "But my toiletries, and my--"

  "We'll buy some." He grabbed the suitcase.

  Edie scuffed her feet on the ground and caught the door jamb, blocking him. "Kev, I need to leave a note for Jamal!"

  He froze, dismayed. "You can't turn on a light."

  "But I can't just disappear on him," she pleaded. "Please. Kev. He's only eight. He depends on me. He's my friend."

  Kev was silent. "Edie, I'm sorry," he said gently. "But I have a bad feeling. Other people will read any note you leave for him. I don't think you should draw attention to Jamal. He has enough problems."

  He'd hit on the one argument that could scare her into sheeplike compliance, and she still fought it. "But...but--"

  "You'll have to make it up to him later." He slung the book bag over her shoulder, grabbed her suitcase. Shut her door, locked it.

  Kev went ahead, making no sound, even on wooden boards that always groaned. He pulled her out onto the rickety landing of the staircase that zigzagged down the side of the building.

  Black figures fell silently from above, a heavy rain of death.

  Thud, thud...thud. One landed on top of her, crushing her to the stairs. Knocking out her wind before she had a chance to scream.

  CHAPTER 18

  Kev blocked the blackjack, grabbed it, torqued it round the arm of the bastard, and launched him headfirst down the stairs, but the second one was at him before he could draw gun or blade. A club whipped down. He blocked, lurched back out of range of the kick that would have gotten him square to the groin, but didn't have enough stair. A nanosecond out of balance, and the bastard scooped his legs from under him. Kev jabbed an elbow into the guy's face, felt teeth clack. Garlic breath. The man yanked him off his feet. Down they went, rolling like a many-limbed thudding octopus down the stairs. Pink chiffon flashed by the corner of his eye.

  Edie screamed. The sound cut off to a squeak.

  He struggled to control the terror while he wrestled with the muscular, python strength of Garlic Breath. He'd never fought in these conditions, his mind divided by fear or emotion. He'd always been cool, detached, a perfect fighting machine. Free of fear, guilt, anger.

  Not now. He'd put her in danger for a goddamn fucking suitcase.

  A roar of fury ripped out of him, helped him flop Garlic Breath onto his back and pummel the guy's cheekbone, nose. Blind impulse whipped his head to the side and down, just in time for a booted foot to swoosh over where his head had just been. A finger jab up into his attacker's exposed groin, and a gurgling howl of pain ripped the night.

  His hand chopped down to the bridge of Garlic Breath's nose--

  "Stop, or she dies."

  Kev's eyes flicked up. The third masked man was above him on the stairs, clutching Edie. Her breasts popped out over the pressure of his big arm. He was bigger than the others, bulkier. His knife pressed her jugular. Her throat worked. The knife dug in. Red trickled down.

  Kev shifted away from the guy who lay panting and limp on the landing, and rose to his feet. This wasn't Parrish security staff. Parrish's lackeys would not hold a blade to the boss's daughter's throat.

  These guys were something else. Something worse.

  "I'll tell you what's going to happen now, so we all understand each other," the fat guy said. "You're going to turn around, real slow, and put your hands together behind your back. Ken, get off your ass and put the cuffs on this piece of shit."

  The guy named Ken groaned and grunted as he struggled to his feet. The one who'd gotten the scrotum stab. He was still reeling. Good. He'd learn all about what pain meant, before Kev was done with him.

  Kidnappers. They wouldn't kill her yet. They would need to demonstrate that they had her, that she was alive, to get their money. She probably wouldn't survive a kidnapping, though. Edie's best chance for survival was concentrated in the next few seconds.

  He couldn't move enough to draw the gun, not with the knife to Edie's throat, but the weighted dagger in the sheath stitched to the side of his thigh was near to hand. "Don't hurt her," he said.

  "Don't make me," Fat Guy taunted.

  "Get your hands off her body. And I'll accept the cuffs."

  "Accept?" The guy chuckled. "Fuck you. What makes you think you have anything to bargain with? I can do anything I want with her."

  To illustrate his point, Fat Guy dropped his hand to Edie's crotch, grabbing a handful of chiffon, digging with his fingers. Edie gasped.

  Kev stared into her eyes, willed her with all of his strength. Fall forward, Edie. Fall now. Now!

  She swayed, sagged forward. The knife at her throat shifted as Fat Guy dropped his hand across her chest to block her forward tumble.

  Kev whipped it out, let the knife fly. It lodged, quivering, in Fat Guy's thigh. He let out a huffing grunt of shock.

  "Now!" Kev bellowed, already spinning. The kick caught the guy named Ken on the side of the head. He whapped against the banister, sagged. Edie wrenched away, fought. Fat Guy struggled with her as Kev bounded toward them.

  He shoved her forward, and she tumbled into Kev's arms. He reeled beneath her weight, slight though it was, slammed against the banister, slid, struggling to catch her as Fat Guy thundered past them.

  The men had dragged themselves to their feet. They hurled themselves down the stairs. Kev set Edie down and leaped to the bottom of the landing, pulling his SIG 220, but he couldn't get a clear shot through that dark zigzag of stairway, and didn't want to risk shooting through a wall and hitting someone innocent. He heard thudding, stumbling, their furious muttering, but by the time they staggered out and he had a clear shot, they were out of pistol range. He needed a rifle.

  The attackers limped through the gate and piled into a black SUV. Lights flashed. It roared away. Too far to make out plates.

  He tucked the gun into his pants, turned to Edie. "You OK?"

  She looked up, owl-eyed, from where she sat in her cloud of dirty, torn chiffon. Bright red shoes peeked out of the bottom of the skirt. "I...I...Oh, my God," she squeaked. "My God. That was...that was--"

  "Let's get the fuck out of here," he cut in.

  "Yes," she agreed fervently, but she flung herself at him when he pulled her to her feet. Her book bag had fallen to the foot of the flight of stairs, as had the suitcase. He retrieved them, and pulled Edie behind him. She walked drunkenly, stumbling. Wrecked. Fucking bastards.

  He stared at Chiliker's Volvo with unfriendly eyes as they got into it. He was relatively sure he'd taken off from his place unobserved, and nobody knew the car belonged to him yet. He'd parked here, and those guys hadn't been here when they arrived. Maybe Edie's house was their next stop. Or maybe someone had let the men know
they'd arrived. Her apartment could be under physical or video surveillance, which meant the car could've been compromised, with a bug, a GPS device. He'd have to take it apart piece by piece to be sure. Who the fuck had the time?

  He got Edie settled, and roared away from the curb, punching the number of his car service into the cell. He set the meeting place for the passenger drop-off zone for international flights at the Portland Airport. If someone was following a GPS tag, let the search end there, and fuck you very much. He kept his hand on Edie's knee.

  He couldn't tell from her frozen profile just how wonky she was. If he should be rushing her to the hospital. That was probably the responsible thing, but nothing in his life was cut and dried. He couldn't secure her in a hospital. He didn't trust Assface and his men to do it. They were just another thing to protect her from. Whenever Parrish got his shit together to sign the piece of paper that authorized them to lock her up. To keep her away from dangerous lowlifes like himself.

  Her breathing was shallow. He could hear her teeth chattering. By the time he got to the airport, he'd come to a decision.

  He spotted the car he'd called, and pulled in behind it. He took her hand. It shook in his. So delicate and slender, like a baby bird. But she was anything but fragile. No matter how delicate she seemed.

  "Hey," he said. "I need your input."

  She dragged in a jerky, hitching breath. "Me?"

  "Yeah, you." He petted her trembling hand, trying to sooth it. Aw, fuck this. He shoved the center console up, slid over and seized her, pulling her into his arms. Hugging her tight.

  It helped. Her heartbeat started to calm from a frantic gallop after a few minutes. He could feel the effort she was making to breathe deeper, pull the shattered pieces of herself together.

  "My input," she said, her voice tight and strangled. "So tell me."

  He popped the door. "Let's get out of here. Car could be bugged."

  She followed him out, swaying, clutching her purse to her chest. He wrapped his arms around her, scanning the people and cars that came and went as he whispered into her ear. "There are two ways we could go. We could get into the car I called, go to a cheap roadside motel outside the city where I pay in cash, and leave no trail. We chill, get some sleep, think about our options. Or I take you to an emergency room where you can be examined and treated for shock. Your call."

  "Ah." She gulped. "Um...I think I'm OK. A few bruises, maybe."

  "If I took you to the hospital, I would worry about security," he went on grimly. "We'd have to call the police, make a report, get smeared all over the grid. Your people would have you in a fucking vise. And they would have some serious, indisputable reasons to keep you locked down. Christ, I could hardly blame them, at this point."

  "Yes," she whispered. "Yes, that's true."

  "Any clue who those guys were? Not your father's people, I assume."

  A fresh shudder racked her body. "No idea," she said. "It was no one I knew. No voice I recognize."

  "A kidnapping attempt, then," he said.

  "Oh, my God." She buried her face against his chest.

  "We didn't even see their faces," he said. "If I took you to the hospital, one of those guys could dress as a doctor or a nurse or a tech, and walk right past me, and I wouldn't have a fucking clue. But I can't drag you off to some hotel to hide if you need medical treatment. So tell me, Edie. But tell me quick, because staying still makes me nervous."

  Her fingers kneaded his chest, like a kitten's claws. Her breath bloomed, warm and quick and frantic against his collarbone.

  Kev was disgusted with himself when he felt his dick throb in reaction to her scent, her softness. Talk about bad timing. "Decide," he said. "This car is compromised, and we have to get moving."

  Edie kissed his chest. "I opt for the hotel. I feel safer with you."

  Relief flooded him, triumphant joy. Lust, too, roaring up like a fire doused with kerosene. Cool it, dickhead. She'd just been threatened with rape and murder. The famished little head could wait for its fun.

  But the look in her eyes made his heart thud. Back straight, head up. Those scumbags hadn't flattened her. They wouldn't get a chance.

  She'd chosen him. His eyes fogged, his throat clutched up.

  Fatuous asshole. He had to toughen up, be strong for her, to do the hard thing. Which was to clamp down on soft feelings, lock them in the vault for later. That was how it had to be, to keep his shit together.

  "Let's go."

  Edie let him settle her in the taxi. He tossed the suitcase in the trunk, book bag onto her lap, the big shopping bag of food in at her feet, and slid in next to her. "Cascade Locks," he told the guy.

  "You didn't say you were going that far! It's four A.M.!"

  Kev pried out his wallet and pulled out some bills. He shoved them into the grizzled man's hand. The guy looked at them, slid them into his shirt pocket, then peered back at the car they had just abandoned.

  "You gonna leave that car parked there?" he asked.

  "Yeah," Kev said.

  "This is an airport drop-off zone, man. They'll bill you up the ass."

  "We've got worse problems," Kev said.

  The guy glanced over his shoulder, took in Edie's torn dress, the mask of smudged makeup, the bruise on her cheek. The scrape on Kev's cheekbones, the blood on his knuckles. They looked like hell.

  "I don't want to know what your problems are," the guy said.

  "That's good, because I wasn't going to tell you," Kev said evenly. "Get there in less than thirty minutes, and you get another hundred."

  The car leaped away from the curb with a muscular surge of gas. Kev leaned back and wrapped his arm around Edie.

  His mind raced. Three on one, but they'd almost taken him. So they were pros. He'd felt it, in their training, their style, their silence.

  So if they were pro, why the fuck hadn't they just shot him? It would have been so much easier, quicker. Why the cuffs? Any of them could have blasted him with a silenced gun. Edie was the valuable one.

  It didn't make sense. He should be dead. Something important was missing from the puzzle. It scared him, and being scared made him angrier. They'd hurt her, struck her, scared her. His beautiful Edie, who deserved to be treated like a goddess, who deserved none of this shit.

  He would hunt down those scumbags, and inflict such pain as they had never known existed. But for now, he had to chill.

  He closed his eyes, put it all in the deep freeze. After a few moments, he could breathe again, unclench his fists. No more red fog in his vision. With one significant difference.

  The harder he tried to force it into the deep freeze, the harder his dick became. That particular door wouldn't lock anymore.

  Edie had blown it right off its hinges.

  She must have slept. As soon as she was in contact with Kev's big, warm body, his arm wrapped around her, his heartbeat thudding beneath her ear, she'd crashed. But ten miles past Gresham, she shook awake. The headlights lit up I-84 East, through the Columbia Gorge. The mountains of the Cascade Range towered up, steep and dark, covered with conifers. She tried to make sense of what had happened that night, but she could only think of one tiny piece at a time.

  "I wonder if those guys had something to do with what happened to my father tonight," she murmured.

  He glanced down. "Thought you were asleep. We're almost there."

  "Do you think that--"

  "We'll talk at the motel." His voice sounded as if he were angry.

  Kev kept her glued to his side when they got to the motel. They registered with a bald guy who looked like he'd been dragged out of his bed and was anxious to return to it. Finally, the door closed be hind them. She looked around the cramped room that smelled of cigarettes and room freshener, and was so grateful, she could have wept.

  Kev looked around. "Sorry it's a dump. Mike lets me pay cash. I don't know what kind of reach these guys have, but I'm guessing it's long enough to track my credit card purchases."

  "The roo
m is fine," she assured him. "I'm grateful for it. So do you think that this could be about Dad? The attack he had tonight?"

  He shook his head. "I think this is more about you than it is about him. What I'm wondering is why I'm still alive at all."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "Why they didn't kill me," he clarified. "I can't think of a reason."

  "Uhh..." She struggled with that. "Could it be because you fight like a maniac? Could that have something to do with it?"

  He dismissed that with an impatient jerk of his hand. "I'm not bullet-proof. If I'd been kidnapping you, I'd have just shot me in the head straight off, saved myself a whole lot of trouble. But these guys went at me with blackjacks. They had cuffs ready. They seemed to be expecting me. They had an agenda, and I can't guess what it is. But I'm alive, so it's something more than just money. Or just you."

  "And...and this means?"

  "I have no idea," he said. "Nothing good. I'm sure of that."

  "That I could have guessed for myself," she murmured.

  He tossed down the suitcase, laid the bag of food on the dresser, the duffel on the chair. "I need to secure the room, and assemble one of these guns. You lie down. Get some rest."

  She stood there staring at him. Feeling bereft and dismissed. The helpless girl in the poofy dress with nothing to contribute. A dead weight around his neck. Her throat clutched. "Won't you lie down, too?"

  "Bad idea."

  "Why?" she asked. "Isn't this an SSZ?"

  He looked blank. She rolled her eyes, sighing. "Secure Sex Zone, doofus," she reminded him patiently.

  He grunted, grim and unsmiling. "Things have changed."

  Oh, shit. Didn't they always. She steeled herself to ask it. "Um...and how exactly have they changed?"

  "I've changed." His curt voice made her wince. "I'm not in a playful mood. Seeing a knife to your throat really killed that buzz."

  She bit her lip. So much for her hopeful fantasies of snuggling and comfort. "So you, ah, don't want to anymore?"

  He stared at her like she'd gone nuts. "Fuck yes, I want to. I've got a combat hard-on that would drive steel spikes, but I'm revved up to rip out someone's throat, Edie. That's not the energy to take to bed with you. Not after what you went through. Keep your distance. It's better."