by Pamela Clare
Bryant’s jaw clenched. Direct hit. “You haven’t changed at all, Juneau. You’re still the same sleazy creep you were all those years ago.”
“But I was free, wasn’t I? No prison cells for me. Nobody making me bend over and take it every day.” Baiting this asshole was too easy. Bryant hadn’t budged, but the tension in his body vibrated through the room. He pulled out the gun from the waistband of his jeans, but kept it at his side.
Maurice laughed. “You won’t kill me or you would have already. Jess must have you by the balls just like your buddies in prison. I wouldn’t be surprised if—”
Bryant lifted the gun and an explosion of sound reverberated in the room. The hiss of a bullet whizzed past Maurice’s ear and he ducked to the left. Fuck! His adrenaline skyrocketed. He looked at the wall where a bullet lodged a few inches from where his head had been.
“You really have a fixation with my sex life,” Bryant muttered dryly. “If I was you, I’d be more worried about when and how I was going to die. You know, I thought you might possess a fraction of remorse, but that would require you to have a conscience and clearly that isn’t the case.” Bryant kept the gun leveled at Maurice’s eyes and the intense look on his face had Maurice sweating.
“You’d better thank Jess when she gets back,” Bryant growled. “She’s the only reason I’m walking out of here right now, because if I stay, I’m going to kill you. But this conversation isn’t over, Juneau. Not by a long shot.” Bryant tucked the gun into the back of his jeans and strode out the door.
Maurice exhaled and clenched the screwdriver in his hand. Time to get the hell out of here.
Chapter Twelve
A sense of accomplishment filled Jess as she jumped out of the car and sprinted into the house. She’d called Tanner after leaving the condo, so he knew she was on her way. “Tanner?” She set the computer on the kitchen counter and checked the den and living room. “Are you in here?”
Silence. Which meant he had to be in the studio. With Maurice. A seed of worry blossomed in her gut, but she fought the feeling before backtracking into the kitchen and rushing outside. Tanner had promised he wouldn’t go back on his word. He’d told her he’d left Maurice alone to stew but planned to check on him before she returned. So why was her stomach turning summersaults?
Jess opened the studio door and the hinge creaked.
Tanner turned as she stepped inside. Behind him, a flash of movement widened Jess’s eyes. Her pulse skyrocketed as Maurice launched himself at Tanner. Jess couldn’t get a warning out. Didn’t have the air in her lungs or words on her tongue. Tanner must have sensed the danger because he tried to dodge Maurice’s body as he reached in his waistband for his gun. Too late. Maurice slammed into him hard. The gun bounced out of Tanner’s reach. Maurice landed on top of him, pinning Tanner’s right arm beneath him as he lifted his fist high in the air, ready to strike. Something flashed, and paralyzed, Jess could only stare, horrified, as Maurice viciously came down with a weapon in his hand. Tanner caught his wrist before the weapon imbedded in his head. A screwdriver? Maurice had a screwdriver in his hand!
Maurice’s face was a mask of determination as he bared his teeth and fought like an animal. She never would’ve given him credit for half the strength she saw, but adrenaline did amazing things for the blood stream.
Jess screamed. She had no idea what came out of her mouth, she was only aware of the pounding in her head, the violence and danger happening in front of her. She searched for something, anything that might help and spotted Tanner’s gun on the floor.
Oh, God, she’d never held a gun. Hated guns with all her heart. But with shaking hands she picked it up and shouted one more time. “Stop!”
Both men continued to struggle. Sweat beaded Maurice’s forehead as he adjusted and delivered several hard punches with his left fist, landing square in Tanner’s face. The movement threw Maurice off balance and Tanner shifted enough to get his arm free. He returned the punch, knocked Maurice off him.
Jess almost breathed a sigh of relief. Until Maurice reached under his pant leg. Tanner lunged, but stopped short as he stared down the barrel of the gun and a satisfied smile on Maurice’s face.
“You’re such a stupid fuck,” Maurice growled. “You were stupid then, and seven years in prison never changed you. You couldn’t even hold me for a fucking day.”
Jess lifted the gun. It was heavier than she expected, cool in her damp palms. She pointed it at her boss. “Maurice, p-put the gun d-down,” she said. Her voice shook, her raw nerves rattled in desperation.
Maurice didn’t bother looking at her and Tanner didn’t either. They kept their eyes on each other as Maurice sneered. “You pat me down for a gun, but you’re too stupid to find it.”
When had Maurice ever carried a gun? How come she hadn’t known about this?
Panic rose and made Jess sick to her stomach. She couldn’t shoot him, but she couldn’t let him shoot Tanner. “Maurice, I won’t say it again, put the g-gun d-down.” She put her finger more securely on the trigger.
“What are you going to do, Jess?” Maurice taunted, never letting his gaze move from Tanner’s. “Stutter me to death?” The barb barely registered and he went on. “I’m going to do what I should’ve done years ago, Bryant. I’m going to put you out of your misery. How’s that? No prison. No life. Just death. Maybe I’ll make Jess here dig your grave. She seems to like you. Doesn’t seem to faze her that you took it up the ass in prison.” Standing a few feet from Tanner, Maurice wouldn’t miss if he fired.
Tanner’s nostrils flared. His fists clenched with unleashed fury.
Nausea roiled in Jess’s stomach. She adjusted her aim, toward the ceiling. She wanted to scare Maurice, not shoot him. He hadn’t even glanced at her, still had no idea she had a gun. She added a bit more pressure to the trigger.
“Adios, asshole.” Maurice grinned, lifted the gun a fraction and took a step forward.
The gun exploded in Jess’s hand, shocked her. The kick vibrated in her palms. Everyone flinched as a spark flashed overhead.
Deadly silence descended over the room. Maurice swayed and the gun fell from his hand. He dropped to his knees then keeled over on his side.
What the… What happened?
Her gut clenched. The possibilities swirled in her head. “No,” she whispered. The room tunneled, until Maurice was the only thing she saw. She waited for him to get up, trained the gun on him in case he tried to shoot Tanner.
Maurice, get up. But the words wouldn’t come. She didn’t have an ounce of spit in her mouth. The gun felt heavy in her hand, a thousand pounds of steel bogging down her whole soul. She willed him to move anything at all.
“Oh, Jesus,” Tanner muttered. Funny, how she heard his words so clearly when the gun blast still reverberated in her head, in her whole body. He knelt next to Maurice, put two fingers to his throat. A few seconds later he looked at her, his eyes wide, filled with a mixture of panic and surprise. He saw the gun and edged toward her. “Jess, drop it.” Yes, she wanted to. She wanted to give him the gun, but she couldn’t move her fingers. They stayed locked tight around the butt. Tanner put his hand over the muzzle, lowered the weapon as he eased it from her grasp. “I’ve got it. Let go,” he whispered.
She swallowed hard and shook her head. “Maurice?” she asked. She moved toward him. “He took a step,” she blurted. “I wasn’t aiming for him. I purposely raised the gun high.” She knelt next to him, shook his shoulders. “No, no, no. Maurice! Get up! I didn’t even hit you!” She turned back, looked at Tanner as desperation strangled her chest. “Help me,” she wailed. “We need to get him help.”
Tanner just stood there, watching her, his eyes dark, unreadable. But Maurice’s eyes…they were sightless. Open and staring at nothing. How could that be?
The flash from overhead. Jess looked up at the dozen or so sculpted steel guitars hanging down. Blake had been making them for two years. One had a ding in the bottom. A ricochet?
Then she s
potted it….the trickle of blood that ran next to Maurice’s ear. She followed it to the neat hole in his head, hardly any blood except that little trail next to his thin sideburn. Her stomach clenched, bile backed up in her throat.
Dead? He was dead?
No, no. This couldn’t be happening. “I told him to drop it,” Jess cried. Maurice was her only hope. Without him, she didn’t get her family back. “I t-told him.”
“I know,” Tanner said, taking her shoulders and helping her to her feet. Her legs barely held her and he picked her up, cradled her in his arms as he stalked out of the room.
“Tanner!” She fought his hold, looked back to Maurice. “What are you doing? We need to do something.” The last word drowned in a sob as Jess’s world crashed in around her. This wasn’t an option. She couldn’t lose Maurice. She needed him. Without him, she had no leverage, nothing to bargain with. She buried her head against Tanner’s neck as the full realization set in. “Oh, my God. What did I do? What did I do?” She chanted the words over and over.
She’d sealed her family’s death.
She’d saved his life, but that hadn’t registered with her yet. Tanner wondered if it ever would. All she knew was that Juneau was dead and she’d killed him. Didn’t matter how inadvertent or accidental it was.
It was his fault. Tanner shouldn’t have left him alone. He should’ve watched the scumball like a hawk. But if he’d stayed in that room, he would’ve killed Juneau. Remembering all the vile comments Juneau made about Jess still had Tanner’s blood hot. Pulling the trigger and seeing the fear in Juneau’s eyes had only satisfied him a little. If he’d listened to him another minute, he’d have a put a bullet between the man’s eyes, but he’d given Jess his word so he’d stuck to it. He’d left Maurice alone for the better part of forty minutes. Forty minutes for Tanner to cool off. Forty minutes that had changed everything.
Now it was all over. He’d lost his chance. Sure, he got the result he’d come for, but even if he took the blame, which he planned to, Jess was the one who’d pulled the trigger. She was the one who had to live with it.
Tanner held Jess close against his chest as she fell apart. How the hell were they going to get out of this? He opened the back door and set her in a chair at the kitchen table. He crouched in front of her, held her face in his hands. “Jess, we’ll figure something out.”
She yanked away from him. “How?” she roared. “How am I going to get the money if he’s dead? I can’t even deliver Maurice now.” Her flushed face twisted in horror as she shot out of the chair, forcing it over, nearly toppling Tanner too. “I’ve killed them. I killed Maurice and I may as well have killed my whole family.”
He saw Juneau’s laptop on the counter. “We still have the computer. Maybe we can—”
“Don’t you get it?” she screamed, turning on him, her eyes wide and wild. “I killed him. There’s no negotiating. No way to get my family back.” She dropped her head in her hands. “I didn’t mean to. Oh, God, I didn’t mean to.” She sank to the floor and Tanner’s heart bled as her sobs echoed in the big room. “I just wanted to scare him. He never looked at me! He didn’t see I had a gun.”
Hell, Tanner hadn’t known she’d had his gun. They’d both dismissed her, hadn’t even glanced at her. Who’d have thought Jess would pick up a gun, much less pull the trigger?
She lifted her head, her face tear-streaked and swollen. “What did you do?” she asked, accusation in her tone. “Did you purposely let him go? Did you want to fight him?”
What? “No!” Tanner bit out. “You saw him. He jumped me when you opened the door. He sawed those fucking cuffs off on his own.” Speaking of sawing, for the first time, Tanner acknowledged the wetness dampening his shirt. He tugged at the collar of his ripped T-shirt to see the bloody line from the screwdriver. Juneau had sliced across his shoulder on his first attack. Fuck. He stripped off his shirt, grabbed the nearest dishcloth, and wiped up most of the blood.
“Oh, God,” Jess said, already in another panic. “You’re bleeding.” Her face went another shade paler as she got to her feet. “I didn’t know you were bleeding.” She reached for the wall for support.
Tanner grabbed her shoulders, shook her a little. “I’m okay, Jess. Take a deep breath. I promise, I’m okay.”
“You need stitches,” she murmured. All color drained from her face just as it had when she’d spotted the bullet hole in Maurice’s head. He’d seen it immediately. Had known in a second the man was dead. He’d been surprised, but his concern belonged to Jess.
She swayed.
Uh, oh. Tanner caught her and moved her into the den, onto the giant brown leather sofa in the middle of the room. Four ottomans tucked into the U-shaped sofa and made a huge bed. He laid her down, stuck a couple of pillows under her knees. “Stay here a sec. Don’t move.”
Now was his chance to go back to the studio. Jess was too out of it to follow or ask questions and he didn’t want her going in there again. He needed to see what the police were going to see when they found the scene. There was too much DNA in there to cover this up. It was only a matter of time before the truth came out.
Tanner surveyed the room. Juneau was just how they’d left him, staring blindly ahead. The bullet had entered neatly and left a hole, but only a little blood trailed near the wound. The damage inside had to be pretty massive for the outside to be so neat. Tanner had heard that once. A bloody wound sometimes meant the damage inside wasn’t as critical. On the other hand, very little blood on the outside, didn’t bode well for the injured party.
Not that Juneau was injured. He was just very dead.
Tanner found a rolled up blanket and spread it over Juneau. He spotted the screwdriver, but didn’t pick it up. He studied the flat end, as deadly as any knife blade. Juneau must have found it on the floor. There was no other explanation. Tanner didn’t want to disturb the scene. Yeah, they may have brought Juneau here against his will and Tanner may have wanted him dead, but it wouldn’t have happened if Juneau hadn’t attacked him. It had been self-defense and Juneau’s handprints on the screwdriver and his gun would prove it. So would the slice on Tanner’s shoulder and so would the ding in the guitar where the bullet ricocheted. Tanner wouldn’t have cared, but the fact that Jess had pulled the trigger changed everything. On his way out the door, Tanner turned up the AC to keep Juneau’s body from decomposing quicker than necessary.
Tanner leaned against the closed door. Let the sun shine down on him. He hadn’t gotten any answers. He’d wanted information from Juneau and now he had nothing. He’d wanted confirmation that Juneau had paid his lawyer to see him go to prison. He’d wanted a little regret from Juneau. Yeah, so that wouldn’t have happened, but Tanner had still wanted to make Juneau sweat just as he had every day in that rotten prison.
He had no feelings for Juneau. At the moment, his concern lay fully with Jess. She’d done something he’d wanted to do with all his heart and she hurt for it. She’d agonize over it. Tanner wouldn’t be able to tell her that it was no great loss, because killing Juneau meant the loss of her family.
Unless they came up with another plan.
Tanner entered the house and found Jess where he’d left her. She stared up at him, her eyes wet. “I f-fucked up,” she whispered.
He hadn’t heard her swear until now. Obviously it wasn’t something she did often. If ever.
This was bad. He got that. She looked desolate. Destroyed. Her eyes glowed amber in her pale face and the familiar feeling of helplessness washed through Tanner. A feeling he’d lived with for years when it came to himself, but one he had harder time reconciling when it came to this woman.
Her gaze shifted to his shoulder and she sat up. “C’mon, we need to fix you.”
“Just hang tight a minute and get yourself together. It’s not bad,” he said, swiping at the cut with the dishcloth.
“Don’t treat me like a child.” The steely look she shot him blazed anger. “I can see what’s in front of my eyes and you need he
lp.” She moved off the sofa and left him to follow her. She disappeared inside the walk in kitchen pantry.
With the dishcloth soaked in blood, Tanner opened drawers and looked for something else to place on his shoulder. He found something better. Krazy Glue.
Chino had told him how his brother used it in emergency situations. That it was originally intended to put the skin back together but found wider use for everything else. No reason not to test the theory. After a last wipe with the dishcloth, Tanner pieced the skin together and spread the glue along the seam.
Jess came back from the pantry with a red first aid kit. “What are you doing?” She took a closer look at his shoulder then at the glue on the table. “You didn’t do what I think you did, did you?” Anger laced her voice and Tanner held back his smile. There was something so fresh and innocent about Jess that even now, when they should’ve been shitting bricks and figuring out what to do with Juneau’s body, she was making him grin.
Fishing in the kit, Tanner found some bandages in case the Krazy Glue didn’t work.
Jess slapped his hand away. “Let me do it. You’re all thumbs. Sit here,” she ordered, pulling up a nearby stool from the center island. She adjusted the bandages and Tanner struggled not to breathe her in. She smelled like flowers, like spring. Like something he didn’t deserve. Her fingers fluttered over his skin, heated him up. He looked away from her, over her, anywhere but at her, because if he gazed into her eyes, all bets were off. It didn’t matter that a dead man lay in her converted studio, if she kept touching him so tenderly, kept wafting her soft breath near his ear while she worked, he was going to explode.
Adrenaline already had him hard as a post. Having her so close didn’t help one damn bit. She made his condition worse, made him hunger with uncontrollable need. Just when Tanner reached his limit, when he meant to take her in his arms, she pulled back, slammed the top of the kit down and stalked away.
