“It is.”
Kier snorted, a sharply satisfied sound. “This is it. Our Get Out Of Jail Free Card.”
For the first time, she saw John smile. It softened his face and she found herself starting to think of him as a person, rather than a pawn of a higher power. “I don’t understand,” she said. “How does that help us?”
Kier turned to her, smiling a thin smile. “They wanted to replace me. Set up their own man in my place, as the first person all the big agencies call when they want an agent debriefed, a hostile subject…” he hesitated, and his mouth tightened. “When they want someone interrogated. But that only works so long as everyone thinks their man is not anyone’s man at all, as long as everyone believes Kendrick is completely free and independent. But he’s not. And this”—he waved the paper—”proves it. They didn’t trust him, so they made him sign.”
“Okay,” she said, getting the significance, if not the stakes. “So what now?”
“We go,” said Kier, decisively, handing the paper back to John and secreting the weapon away. “And quick.”
But even as she spoke she heard the sudden silence of the birds, the crunch of the gravel outside, the soft sound of an expensive engine.
“Too late,” Jenny said, with no apology for the melodrama.
Kier shot her an angry look, but it didn’t scare her. She understood. He’d wanted her gone, and she was still here. He’d wanted her safe away before Kendrick got here, and she’d thwarted him in that. She could even feel a type of sympathy for his anguish. She felt it, too.
She’d expected him to swear, half-expected him to explode, but instead his eyes narrowed, his nostrils flared, and he rolled one shoulder, a smooth, muscular movement that caught her whole attention. He closed his eyes for a breath, opened them, and suddenly she remembered the implacable speed of the man who had hunted her in that dark forest.
He took her breath away.
“You.” He pointed at John. “Take her into the bedroom, keep the door closed. First chance you get, you’re both out the window and away, no stopping. And”—that pointing finger swung round to compel her, too—”no arguments, either. Don’t split my attention. I have a plan.”
She understood. She hated it, but she understood. She shook her head sharply, but she said “okay,” and followed John out of the living room. She balked at the door, wanting to go back, say something profound, kiss him, something … but he was already at the front door, and in his mind, she was already gone.
John reached past her, and quietly pulled the door closed.
Kendrick was outside.
He was standing there waiting on the rough area of grass and gravel in front of the cottage, unwrapping a stick of chewing gum. He was wearing a big puffy leather bomber jacket and black jeans, silhouette nicely indistinct so as to not reveal things under the jacket.
Kier felt like a hound that had caught the scent. His heartbeat pumped in his throat, and the thin, acidic feel of adrenaline raised his awareness and his spirits. He smiled and moved to open the door.
“Mr. Kendrick,” Kier said. “So nice to meet you again. Conscious.”
Kendrick was smiling, too, shaking the shaggy blond hair out of his eyes, uncovering the fading bruise that discoloured almost half his face. “McAllister. It was good of you to call.” He seemed to think better of the gum, and tossed it onto the wind-rippled grass.
They stood there, facing each other, sizing each other up.
“Come on, we have to go,” Dawson said, trying to take Jenny by the arm.
She snatched it back, scowling, still trying to listen through the bedroom door. “I’m not leaving.”
“You heard him, we’re to get out the back while we can.”
“I’m not leaving, Dawson, live with it.” It occurred to her that McAllister would have removed her bodily. But Dawson wasn’t McAllister, after all.
Kier spoke first. “All alone?”
“There’s a time when witnesses are an inconvenience.”
“True.” He indicated the interior with a slow movement of his left hand. “Won’t you come in? Reduce the chance of any more stray witnesses?”
Kendrick looked about him, the place was lonely enough, but that wasn’t the point. “Sure.”
Kier backed up, and into the living room, letting Kendrick come on, and close the front door softly behind him.
“It seems I owe you a vote of thanks,” Kendrick said. “You pulled me out of a puddle, I hear.”
“Don’t mention it. Left up to me, I wouldn’t have got my feet wet.”
Kendrick snorted with false good humour, nodding. “I don’t doubt it.” He lifted his head and looked around him, as if innocently inspecting the small, unassuming room. Arrogant puppy. “So, Kier. Where exactly are we, then?”
Kier let the silence build between them, keeping a confident half smile on his face. For all that he was dying for the opportunity to beat the hell out of this man, this sort of mental fencing put him right in his element. “I take it we are now abandoning the idea that any of this had anything to do with Jenny?”
Kendrick stilled, and then slipped him a sidelong smirk. “I think we’ve got about as much play out of that one as we’re going to get. And you more than some.”
He concentrated on not letting his hands curl into fists. Let Kendrick have his playground insults, Kier knew who the real victor was. The one left holding Jenny.
“Where is Jenny, by the way?”
“Safe.”
Kendrick shrugged. “Maybe.”
We should have gone, John fretted. They should have gone by now. He stood by the open window, the wind beating the curtains against the walls, watching Jenny listening at the door.
He was crazy to have come. He’d achieved nothing.
She’d never had a chance.
We’re together.
God. He’d put them together, a shocked, vulnerable young woman, and a man who made a living manipulating people’s minds. It was almost inevitable really.
And dangerous, and damaging, and wrong.
She left the door, and moved across to him, interrupting the panicked run of his thoughts. “I get what they were trying to do—supplant Kier with Kendrick,” she whispered, close to his ear. “But I don’t get why? What was in it for them? What were the stakes?”
As high as you can get, he thought, but he ran it all through in his head, trying to find the simplest way to put it. “They wanted to remove McAllister and put Kendrick in his place. Then they were going to sell the information he gained, while undertaking the kind of jobs McAllister used to do.”
She frowned, thinking that one through. “Who to?” she asked, and he almost smiled. Everything, but everything in the file on her that he’d assembled, and then dissected, would have told him to expect her to ask just that—a single succinct question, putting her finger right on the crux of the matter.
“Exactly,” he said, stupidly proud of her, as if she’d been a protégé. “To anyone. American or foreign, friend or foe. They didn’t care. Just whoever would pay highest.”
“That’s … treason.” She glanced back at the door, clearly afraid.
“Yes. And that’s what makes Kendrick so dangerous.”
She looked a question.
“He doesn’t care.” He held her eyes, trying to communicate the depth of that simple statement. “He doesn’t care.”
Kier prayed Jenny and Dawson made no sound getting out the window. Come on, Kendrick, keep talking. Give them time.
“This didn’t go quite according to plan for you, did it?” he asked, keeping his tone light.
“Oh, I admit you gave us a few surprises, McAllister. You certainly exceeded our expectations of mayhem. You really don’t like to be crossed, do you?”
Enough dancing around the subject, damn it. “Okay, Kendrick. Let’s make this farce one whole lot easier, yes?”
Kendrick tensed, ever so slightly, and ran his eyes swiftly over Kier’s hands. Kier kept very s
till. “Why don’t you tell me what you want from me, and I’ll see if I can supply it.”
That angelic grin split Kendrick’s face again. “You know, McAllister, not so long ago it really would have been that simple.” He ducked his head, chuckling at his own private joke. “We want you to go away.”
He tipped his head to one side. “To go away?” he said, raising his brows.
“Just go away, McAllister. Leave the profession. Don’t attempt to contact any old clients, don’t do any last jobs, just walk away.”
“I like my work.” At least, he used to. “You’ll have to make it worth my while.”
“Oh, hell McAllister, she’s really fried your brain cells, hasn’t she? We don’t have to make it worth your while. Not now.”
The little room next door was silent. Dear God, let them be gone already, far and away, well out of reach.
Out of range. “Now?”
“You had to push, McAllister, didn’t you? You just had to push a little harder, a little further.”
“It’s what I do best.”
“Not anymore. You pushed too hard, McAllister. It got messy, it got … inconvenient. It would have been enough for you to just”—Kendrick waggled his fingers in a parody of a wave— “go away. But you took it a little too far. You made them nervous.” He tipped his head back a little, still smiling. “It’s all over, McAllister. Once they wanted you gone. Now they want you dead.”
The spike of adrenaline made Kier’s skin itch.
“It’s all over, McAllister,” Kendrick repeated, grinning.
“Hmmm. Do you think so, Kendrick?” Kier stepped just a little closer, so he could see his eyes clearly. “Do you really think so?”
And for the first time Kendrick showed unease. His gaze flicked past Kier, out behind him for a moment, then back again.
Kier didn’t give him a chance to comment. “Tell me,” he said conversationally, “why Jenny? What was her role in this?”
“Jenny?” Kendrick smirked at him under raised brows, seemingly relieved at the apparently innocuous question. “She was just there at the right time. When the report of the incident came in, it was perfect timing. Just what we needed to use against you.” He snorted, enjoying his little joke. “Jenny was just the grit in the oyster, McAllister mate.”
Kier wondered absently if Kendrick would still be smiling when he pushed his teeth through the back of his throat. On balance, he thought not.
Just the grit in the oyster. A worrying, irritating, wholly captivating bit of grit that was inexplicably necessary to him. The knowledge gleamed in the heart of him, deep down inside his hard shell. That little pearl he was going to keep to himself, whatever it took.
He shook his head at his enemy, smiling. “You know, Kendrick, you made so many mistakes it’s hard to know where to begin.”
Kendrick’s smile was hard now, brittle and angry. “I’m not here for an evaluation, McAllister. Your part in this ends here. Didn’t you hear me? You’re a dead man, McAllister.”
Not yet, damn you.
Jenny reached for the door, wild-eyed and shaking, but John was there before her, thrusting her back, shaking his head at her, miming for her to go back, get back.
She implored him with her eyes and her hands, gesturing at the thin door that separated them from Kier and from Kendrick. Do something, her eyes said, swimming in tears.
He had not even the first idea what he could achieve.
Her shaking hands were on his arm. He looked down into a pale face that pleaded with him, worry and fear etched into the tension around eyes and mouth.
“Please,” she begged.
Chapter
FOURTEEN
John was light-headed. He was as light as air. And he was totally calm.
Setting gentle hands on Jenny’s shoulders, he eased her around against the wall, out of sight. Then he opened the door, and passed through, closing it behind him.
“You.” Kendrick spun, gun appearing, levelled at him in both hands. But John saw that Kier stayed still, hands empty, watching.
John took another careful step forward. “You won’t kill him,” he said. “Not when you hear what I have to say.”
Kendrick’s hand moved on the grip, but his eyes had slid across to Kier. “So talk. I’m getting bored with this crap.” There was sweat on his face, though.
He’s falling apart, John thought. “I have all the information I need to bring you, Groven, and Davids down. We know about your little triumvirate, we know what you’d planned, why you had me doctor Jenny’s file and bring in McAllister. That’s all. It’s over.”
The colour drained from Kendrick’s face in a rush. While he, John, was still maintaining some illusion of calm. Maybe he would make a field agent.
“I can see you know what I mean, Kendrick,” he said.
“You’ve no proof,” hissed Kendrick.
It was Kier’s turn to interject. “No? You’re forgetting something, Kendrick. And that might be really, fatally stupid on your part.”
“And what is that?” The other man was breathing hard now, stood rigid, feet braced, his eyes locked on McAllister.
Kier smiled, slow and sure. Moved a little closer. “Remember why you had to get rid of me in the first place, Kendrick?”
He leaned forward. “Because I’m the best, damn it.”
John almost laughed. He knew, then, why operatives like McAllister worked every job they could get, why they were driven to do what they did. He felt the buzz, and it was good.
“We’ve got all the proof we need, right here,” he said, patting his jacket where the file was concealed. The paper rustled. He thought Kier made a noise, but he was busy watching Kendrick come apart, enjoying achieving that, if he was honest.
“When I tell them …” he faltered to a stop as Kendrick’s head swivelled round, meeting his eyes along the gleaming barrel. When.
… all the proof we need, right here.
Oh, damn.
In half a breath he understood his mistake, and had time to curse it.
He thought Kier moved; he tried to turn away himself. Something struck him in the head. There was the loud crack of a shot, the two almost indivisible. The wall was under his cheek, no … it was the floor; he’d fallen.
Why didn’t it hurt?
He wanted it to hurt, wanted it with a rising panic as he realised he’d been shot in the head. Pain was for the living, only the dead were numb.
Alice?
He turned his head, distantly amazed it still obeyed his brain’s commands. It wasn’t fair hair bending over him though, it was dark. Long, dark, curly hair. He tried to frown, but the movement sparked a chain reaction of agony that had him gasping for air.
Elation. He hurt, he wasn’t dead. But there was blood in his eyes, now, and lassitude seizing his limbs, and following hard on the heels of that flare of pain was the numbness, and he didn’t want that. He didn’t want it.
He was not a field agent. Well, not anymore he wasn’t.
Jenny was bending close, her face obscured by her arms as she pressed down on the source of the pain, high on his forehead. What if his skull was cracked, and she pressed …?
“Jenny.” Damn it, his voice wasn’t working.
There were angry shouts in the background, and Jenny was talking too, high and distressed. He couldn’t understand them.
There was another man there, too, a man who wasn’t shouting, and who somehow was vitally important. His head throbbed, his whole skull vibrated with pain, right down to his teeth. He couldn’t think.
There was something he had to tell the woman bending over him, something he had to explain to her. About control and manipulation, and the mess he’d landed her in.
“I’m sorry,” he tried, but his voice just croaked a nonsense, and that wasn’t important, anyway. Information, he thought. Give her the most relevant information, Dawson.
And that, in the end, was the easy part.
Concentrating hard, he swallowed,
and worked to shape the sounds he needed. “Jenny.”
It worked. He felt her bend closer, felt her hair brush his cheek, the gentle touch, ridiculously sharp and clear in the midst of the blunt instrument sensations his body was racked with.
“Jenny,” he said again, working to speak clearly, each syllable its own word. “Stockholm syndrome.”
Stockholm syndrome?
What the hell was Stockholm syndrome? The phrase rang a bell, but she couldn’t place it. Jenny sat back, confused, her hands still pressed to the long, ugly gash on John’s forehead. But blood welled under her fingers, and she felt a sob rising just as inexorably.
She had no idea if his skull was cracked, if the bullet had actually penetrated. She hadn’t looked that closely, acting under the twin commands of instinct and horror. The shot had sent her out of the bedroom without thought, to stumble immediately over John’s body.
No, no, no.
She glanced around, searching for something to use as a pressure pad, and as she did so she saw Kier coming over, moving slowly and carefully under the eye of their enemy.
He had a tea towel, and fashioned a pad and bandage in short, economical moves. He fastened it, moving her hands aside, and when he’d done, and she reached to check his handiwork, he caught her wrist, his grip slipping in blood.
His eyes met hers over John’s body, the warning plain.
“He’s dead,” he said, loudly, loud enough for Kendrick over in the corner, loud enough for John himself to comprehend, and let his eyelids slide shut, his shoulders slump.
She pressed her lips tight together, and breathed hard.
Kier got to his feet, holding her eyes with his own. Under cover of the movement, of the rustle of their clothes, he hissed instructions. “First chance you get, you run.”
Her jaw ached from clenching her teeth. They’d argued that already, argued themselves in circles. But there was a man bleeding at her feet who, if not in fact dead already, might be dead very soon because he hadn’t listened to Kier. The man whose hard grip on her wrists somehow spoke more deadly urgency than the other man with the gun in the corner.
Run Among Thorns Page 23
