by Lisa Gardner
“Yeah. What a way to go.” Houlihan swallowed thickly, then made a big production of squaring his shoulders. “I gave it to her straight. I offered her what I could. She told me the police had done quite enough already—”
Quincy winced.
“She would handle things her own way.”
“Oh, God.”
“She’s been training with a mercenary.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. She’s gone vigilante.” Houlihan tried to force a laugh. “Can you blame her?”
Quincy shook his head tiredly. “Let’s just hope she doesn’t do anything stupid.”
“This is stupid.”
“You don’t have to be here.”
“Tess, think about it a minute. Beckett kidnaps your daughter. So what do you do? You return to his backyard. What do you think he intended?”
Tess stared stubbornly out the window. It was after midnight and they were on the Mass Pike, headed toward Springfield. Few cars were on the road. The moon was weak and further obscured by a steady drizzle. The windshield wipers offered a rhythmic, thump thump, thump thump, otherwise the rental car was quiet.
J.T. was tired and grim at the wheel. He already missed the sun and the desert. Six hours ago he’d been wearing a T-shirt and admiring his garden. Now Rosalita tended his villa and Glug while he and Tess landed in a state so damn cold, it was inhospitable.
J.T. didn’t like Massachusetts. Boston had strong ethnic populations from all over the world—Irish, Italian, Chinese—but everyone still had to answer the same three questions to consider themselves a true Bostonian: Did their ancestors get off the Mayflower? Did they go to Harvard? Did their family personally know any of the Kennedys?
Fail that and forget it. You could live in Boston until you were a hundred and fifty and you still wouldn’t be a Bostonian.
“You said Beckett loves Sam, right?” J.T. continued pressing. “So she’s not in immediate danger.”
“Not in immediate danger? For God’s sake, she’s been kidnapped by a sadomasochist serial killer who rapes and strangles women as a hobby. How safe can she be? He’ll never hit her, but he’s on the run. What if the police corner him? What if there’s a shootout? Dear God, what if there’s a shootout?”
“Tess—”
“No.” She shifted away from him. “I don’t want any platitudes.”
“Oh, dear, what will I say now? Listen to me and pay attention. By your own admission, you are Big Bad Jim’s prime target. And you’ve just traveled within striking distance.”
“The police think he knows how to locate me in Arizona anyway.”
“Yeah, but with a four-year-old girl, it’s going to be a little difficult for him to get there. Dammit, Tess, you’re doing exactly what he wants.”
Tess simply shrugged. “Jim’s a resourceful man. He would have found a way. Now we do it my way.”
“You’re not ready for this.”
“Oh? And at what point is someone ready to take on Jim Beckett? After they’ve been a homicide cop for ten years, twenty years, thirty years? Oops, I’m sorry. He killed them too.”
J.T.’s grip tightened on the wheel. She’d been withdrawn, sarcastic, and bitter ever since getting the news. So far she’d been everything but afraid. That was a bad sign. Fear served a purpose; it helped keep people safe.
“Let me drop you off at a hotel,” J.T. tried again. “I’ll check out the safe house and see if there’s anything to be learned. If there’s a trail, I’ll find it. We’ll go from there.”
“No.”
“So eager to be part of the action?”
“My daughter, my ex-husband, my problem.”
“Your death.”
Her jaw clenched.
“Tess,” he said quietly. “How long do you plan on punishing yourself?”
“What?”
He took the exit for Springfield. “You heard me. There’s more on your mind than Jim Beckett, and, honey, you’d better get it out. Because you take him on with a chip on your shoulder and he will eat you alive.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’re angry.”
“He murdered my friend! He kidnapped my child!”
“Not at him. You’re angry with yourself.”
“And why would I feel that? Because I left my daughter alone to be taken? Because I left the state so Difford could get killed instead of me?”
“Because Samantha was kidnapped while you were screwing a former mercenary and playing family counselor to siblings only Manson could love?” he finished for her. “Come on, Tess. Get it out, get it all out. Hit me if you want. Hit yourself. Then pull it together. Because I’m not letting you out of this car until I know your mind’s one hundred percent on the matters at hand. You’re worthless otherwise.”
“Dammit!” she cried. Then she did hit him. In the shoulder, hard. Next she hit the dash. Three times. He could still feel her frustration and rage.
“I should’ve stayed with Sam,” she whispered miserably. “I should’ve stayed with my daughter.”
“Then you’d be dead too. You wanted change, Tess. This is it. Stop being the martyr and learn to be the cavalry.”
Neighborhoods appeared around them. He knew they were getting close. In a low voice Tess directed him to the former safe house. Most of the neighborhoods appeared older, comprised of one-story ranchstyle homes with two token windows, one token chimney, and not much else. Like growing up in a cereal box, J.T. thought.
He turned down another street. This late, there was no one around. Cars slumbered in driveways. Houses hunkered down on their foundations. Not even a porch light offered a ray of comfort.
He looked over at Tess. She was very pale.
“I can still take you to a hotel.”
“Fuck you.”
“Oh, yeah, Tess. You’re tough.”
She scowled, then pointed to a house tucked between two others. Yellow crime scene tape encircled it like a garish boa.
J.T. parked the car next to the curb. He looked down the block just in case an unmarked car was watching. Nothing. Of course the action here had already come and gone. The crime lab chemists had probably spent a solid day here, analyzing the scene, dusting for prints, cataloguing evidence. Dogs had been brought in to locate Difford’s body, which Tess said they still hadn’t found. Now the real police work would be performed in the lab, the house just an old monument to the violence.
J.T. and Tess had come for that testimony. They needed a starting point to track Beckett, and his last crime scene seemed as good as any. Maybe it would tell them something, maybe it wouldn’t.
J.T. opened the door and stepped out into the stunningly cold fall night.
“Christ,” he muttered. “Give me a cactus any day.”
He jammed his bare hands into his front jeans pockets and hunched lower in his leather bomber jacket. Tess was already climbing out of her side of the car, much more suitably attired.
“Stay here.” He stepped up onto the sidewalk.
“No.” She closed the car door and squared her shoulders.
He didn’t feel like arguing. He walked right over to her and pinned her against the car with his body. His dark eyes bore into hers, harsh and impatient.
“I’m the professional.”
“I’m the client.”
“Tess, you’ll only make a mess of things. Now, get back in the car.”
She stared at him mutinously. “He already has Sam. How much messier could it get?”
“A lot,” he said bluntly. He pinned her in place and leaned closer. She didn’t shrink or cower. Her brown gaze remained steady. God, she’d learned. A regular hellion these days. Marion would be proud. He said, “Beckett isn’t a hay bale, Tess.”
“I know. I felt some pity for the hay bales. I don’t feel any toward Jim.”
She pushed against him hard, but his body didn’t budge.
“In the car.”
“Nope.”
>
She pushed again, and while he was steeling his body against that feeble effort, she ducked beneath his arm. Step, twirl, and she was free, striding beyond his reach with a grim smile.
“You have to admit, I’m getting a lot better.”
He scowled. “It’s not a game.”
He wanted her in the car. He wanted her someplace where he wouldn’t have to worry about her.
She headed toward the front door. “Do you really think he’s here? He already has what he came for.”
“I don’t feel like taking any unnecessary chances.” He briefly debated knocking her out cold and stuffing her into the trunk until it was over. It would serve the fool right.
“He has Sam,” she said flatly. “He’ll have to stay with her in the evening.”
“Or find a beautiful blonde to watch her for him.”
She paused. He caught a slight tremor racking her frame. But Tess brought her chin up stubbornly. The wind stirred behind her, bringing him the scent of China Rain. The moon highlighted her sable hair and caressed her heart-shaped face.
“Christ,” he muttered, and turned away. She looked beautiful, precious, and he didn’t want to see that—not knowing what he did to beautiful, precious things. Thirty-six years old and his life was still locked in the same old patterns, spiraling toward the same bitter end. He hated that. “You got your gun?”
“Yes.” Now she sounded shaken.
“Get it out.”
“You think he’s in there?”
“Get out the damn gun. You wanna play soldier? Soldiers do not question orders. You do as you’re told when you’re told. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’d better believe it.” He took out his gun and removed the safety. Cocked, locked, and ready, the only way a marine made an entrance. “Follow me and do what I say. Don’t make any noise, don’t leave my side. Disobey me once and I’ll shoot you myself.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You know what a clock is?”
She gave him an exasperated look that clearly stated she knew what a clock was.
“Good.” He ignored her attitude. “Anything happens, this is how it works. You’re responsible for the six to twelve position, I’ll cover twelve to six.”
“You mean … you mean shooting, don’t you?”
“Well, you can shake his hand if you want to, but I wouldn’t recommend it.”
“Okay, okay,” she said hastily. Her uneasiness had returned. Then she cleared her face and set her shoulders, the good little soldier. She was killing him.
“The car,” he attempted one last time.
“No.”
“Stubborn ass.”
“Yes. Are we going to talk all night, or do this?”
“Fine.” He sounded angry and couldn’t help it. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Don’t worry, I give you full permission to engrave ‘J.T. was right’ on my tombstone.”
“Gee, thanks. I look forward to that.”
He looked back at Tess one more time. Her hands were trembling slightly, but she was holding the gun the way he’d taught her.
J.T. gave up on indifference.
Okay, God, he bargained shamelessly in his mind. You got Marion. You got Rachel. You got Teddy. The colonel’s prostate cancer was a nice poetic touch, but thirty years too late. Give me Tess. Just give me this one.
Then I’m willing to call it even if you are. It’s a helluva deal.
He received no answer but then he never had. He smiled grimly.
“We’re going in. Semper fi.”
J.T. entered first, his back pressed against the entryway wall, his arm making smooth, level sweeping motions as he pointed his gun at each shadow. His left arm was cocked back, beaming a small flashlight into the entryway. He looked like Rambo.
She felt like the halfhearted understudy.
J.T. slid around the corner and she followed quickly, focusing on taking quiet, shallow breaths. The hallway was long and dark and seemed to bisect the house as a main artery. Her nose twitched. She recognized the scents from years before. The pungent odor of chemicals sprinkled and sprayed onto carpets, the oily residue of fingerprint powder clogging the air. The distant rusty scent of something she didn’t want to contemplate. Crime scenes had their own distinct fragrance of old violence and fresh chemicals. It made bile rise in her throat. She swallowed it back down.
J.T. turned right and led them straight into a tiny kitchen. Dishes were still stacked in the sink and a newspaper was open on the kitchen table, giving the eerie feel of life interrupted. The vinyl floor, however, no longer looked like a kitchen floor. Huge sections had been ripped up, cut out, and sent off to the state crime lab. Most likely they were being analyzed for blood.
J.T. opened the lower cupboards and swept the dank depths with the penetrating flashlight beam. The light came up, washing over an old countertop, now coated in luminescent chemicals.
The beam continued relentlessly. The walls glittered as the light picked up various residues. As he glanced up, he saw the flashlight illuminate dark dots arching across the ceiling like a rainbow. The spray pattern. Indicating a beating with a blunt wooden instrument. Like a tree limb or mop handle or baseball bat.
She was having a much harder time breathing. She squeezed her eyes shut and pictured Sam. You’re doing this for your daughter. You will be strong for your daughter.
“Hold it together,” J.T. growled in her ear. He moved into the living room.
After another deep breath she followed. There was less disturbance here. The furniture looked like it had been hastily rearranged by cops looking for evidence. Random squares of carpet had been cut up and sent off to labs. It was obvious, however, that the main action had happened in the kitchen. The living room just got the residue.
“Stay here,” J.T. said curtly. “I’ll check out the rest of the house.”
“What about my six-to-twelve responsibilities?”
“The wall is the only thing holding you up. Let’s not push it.”
He slid down the hall without another word, taking his flashlight with him. She gripped her gun tighter in her sweaty palms. Carefully she eased away from the wall. She wasn’t going to be sick, she wasn’t going to faint, she wasn’t going to be scared. She was going to be strong, she was going to be tough.
Jim walked up right behind her and popped the plastic bag over her head.
“Theresa,” he whispered in her ear. “I see you answered my invitation. And it looks like you brought me your mercenary to kill.”
J.T. had just opened the last dresser drawer in the spare room when he knew he was no longer alone. Tess? She couldn’t move that quietly. These were the steady steps of a professional.
Beckett. How?
He tightened his finger around the trigger of his 9mm and rolled up on the balls of his feet just in time to hear the telltale whistle of a bat whizzing down. He leapt to the side and fired twice. The bat crashed into the dresser.
J.T. pivoted, tried to aim, and received two sharp blows to his kidneys for his efforts. His gun went flying. He lashed out with his foot and heard the grunt of Beckett receiving the blow.
Whirling his head around, J.T. spotted his gun. He lunged. Simultaneously Beckett lifted the bat.
Roll and fire, just like a shooting drill, except Beckett wasn’t a cardboard target and the stakes were real.
His finger pulled back sharply, one, two, three, and through the ringing in his ears he heard Beckett’s sharply indrawn breath. The bat, however, rose again.
J.T. moved but not fast enough; the bat caught him with a solid crack against his forearm. His fingers went immediately numb, then flared red hot with pain. The gun dropped from his lifeless hands.
“Shit.”
The bat rose.
There was no more time for thinking. Now it was about adrenaline. It was about rage. And J.T. felt a whole lot of it well up inside him.
His lips curved back in a snarl
. He held his wounded arm against his ribs and kicked hard with his left leg. He connected solidly with Beckett’s kneecap, hearing the other man’s winded grunt and feeling the blood lust grow.
He lashed out again, stomping a rock-hard stomach. Quick pivot and turn, and he smashed his foot into Beckett’s upper arm. The bat dropped to the floor. J.T. closed in for the kill.
Just as he lunged forward, however, Beckett hooked his feet and he flew through the air. He landed hard, his hands too numb to catch him. The oxygen left his lungs in a painful whoosh, his chest filled with fiery red ants. His eyes saw spots and his bruised hip roared with pain.
He kept moving, instinct yelling roll roll roll or die.
He staggered to his feet, trying to sight Beckett. The world spun sickeningly. He couldn’t get his balance. He couldn’t find his gun.
Shit, he was in trouble. Focus, dammit, focus.
His blurry gaze finally found Beckett, a tall, pale shadow that looked alien and ghostlike. It took J.T. a minute to understand why. Beckett was hairless, no head hair, no eyebrows, no nothing. His eyes seemed to have receded in his face, smaller and more penetrating without brows to highlight and soften. A serpent’s head, that’s what it looked like.
The two men stared at each other.
J.T. held his arm against his side. Blood trickled down Beckett’s shoulder.
Beckett moved. He clenched his teeth in blatant frustration and leapt for the window. J.T. lurched after him.
At the last minute, however, Beckett turned, one foot swung over the windowsill.
“Theresa,” he said simply. “By now I wouldn’t think she has any oxygen left.”
J.T. halted.
Beckett smiled. “You fool. I had her for years. I can tell you, she’s not worth it.”
“You’re dead.”
“She’s mine. Help her and you become mine too. Just ask Difford when you see him again.”
Beckett slipped out the window, and there was nothing J.T. could do that wouldn’t cost Tess her life. He recovered his gun from the floor, and with his left arm clutched against his ribs raced for the living room.
Tess was handcuffed to the coffee table with a plastic cooking bag plastered against her skull.
J.T. unsheathed the knife from his ankle, slit the plastic bag, and peeled it back from her face. Her head lolled to the side, her pale skin tinged with blue.
