by Sara DeHaven
He swept up the rest of what he could with the broom, listening all the while for any sounds from the apartment below, but he didn’t hear any. Hopefully, some small remnant of his luck was with him and his downstairs neighbors were out.
After he put his cleaning supplies away, he sat back down tiredly in his damaged chair. Marton regarded him steadily. The scratch mark on his left cheek was livid. “I don’t want to hear any more excuses about Bree Jenkins. In fact, I don’t care if you have to beat the information out of her. She’s no trained Keeper like Thorvaldson. I’m sure she’d break easily.”
“And after I get the information out of her, what then?”
“You can kill her, for all I care, if you think you’re compromised. Just make it clean. I have enough details to take care of right now.” Franchesca stirred at Marton’s words, and an evil little smile came and went on her face. Doubtless she’d be thrilled to see her rival for Thorvaldson’s affections dead. “If you’d made more progress with her, it wouldn’t have come to this,” Marton concluded, standing up. “Come,” he said shortly to Franchesca, as if she were a dog.
Franchesca got slowly to her feet, teetering a little. “I don’t feel like going out to dinner anymore,” she told Marton’s retreating back.
“Fine,” he replied stiffly, “take a cab home.”
Leander was not at all okay with being left alone with Franchesca. To his very great relief, she ignored him, walking over to put on her coat and sling her purse over her shoulder. She left without another word to him.
He slumped back into the chair, prodding carefully at his throbbing cheekbone, and as he did, relief was replaced by anger. Why in fucking hell wouldn’t Bree return his calls? He could have sworn he had her hooked. She should be willing to see him out of guilt if nothing else, after their last, strange interlude. She’d seemed genuinely concerned about him. Didn’t she at least want to know how he was doing after that disastrous read of hers? Obviously, she didn’t actually give a shit.
Leander got restlessly to his feet, paced into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, looking for something to eat, wanting some distraction. Nothing looked remotely appealing, and he slammed the door shut.
He went to the big windows that lined the south side of his loft and looked out. It was full dark, and a misting rain beaded the windows. He put his forehead against the glass, trying to cool his fevered thoughts. They were all thoughts of Bree. Bree sitting on his lap, Bree rubbing his back, Bree holding his hands, looking up at him, apologizing to him. The thoughts made him acutely uncomfortable. There was longing in them, and the feeling sickened him.
He spun away from the windows, hands clenched. She was probably with Thorvaldson. He was sure that was the only thing that would keep her from calling him back, from wanting to see him. How dare she fuck up his plans like this? He absolutely could not afford to get on Marton’s bad side.
His frustration and fury rose then, and abruptly crystallized into a plan. He was done waiting around for her. He would get some answers tonight if he had to take her apart piece by piece to do it. He went into his bedroom, put on his coat, and collected his gun from his bedside table and tucked it into his coat pocket. Then he went to his dresser and pulled out the top drawer. His hand dipped underneath the socks and he drew out his switchblade. He thumbed the release button, and the blade whipped out. Instantly, he was flooded with images of Bree bound to a chair, screaming, bleeding, telling him everything he wanted to know. A light sweat broke out on his face, and nausea churned away in his stomach. He closed his eyes for a moment, feeling weak. Enough. He pressed the blade back into its housing and tucked the knife into his other coat pocket, picked up his keys, and headed out the door.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Bree arrived home from her office having no idea how she got there, grateful that some part of her brain was attending to driving while her thoughts and feelings staggered around like a herd of drunk football fans. She couldn’t find street parking in front of her house and had to search down the block a bit. She finally managed to wedge her Subaru into a tight spot about six houses down. She got out of the car, slung her daypack tiredly over her shoulder, and headed off down the sidewalk toward her house. She was three houses away when she heard a sharp crack followed by an echo that bounced in a confusing way all around her. She barely had time to wonder about what it was before she heard another at the same time as she felt her daypack jerk. She whirled around to see no one behind her just as a third crack sounded, accompanied by a thudding sound from the trash bin sitting out on the curb right next to her.
It finally clicked. Someone was shooting at her, probably using a silencer. She immediately ducked down behind the trash bin, mind suddenly very alive, body quivering. Who the hell would be trying to shoot her? Was the trash bin even remotely adequate protection? Somehow, she doubted it.
She took a calculated risk and made a dash for the nearest parked car. There was another crack, accompanied by a high pitched ping as a bullet winged off the car in front of her. Whoever was shooting at her was in a position to see her scrambling from the trash bin to the car. Bree glanced quickly around, trying to judge the angle of the shooter. It seemed to her that the sound had been coming from up the block, closer to her house. And when her daypack had jerked, she was pretty sure it had jerked to the right, meaning the shooter was up ahead and to her left. Of course, by the time she worked all this out, the shooter could have moved.
She reasoned that moving away from the shooter was her best bet, which meant retreating back toward her car. Before she could chicken out, she took off running, half bent over. It was a few beats before the next shot came. She heard it strike the big green yard waste bin she was passing. She swerved away from it, into the street in the narrow space between the bumpers of two parked cars, crouching down as far as she could get. She felt pinned down, sure that the shooter was probably moving toward her at this very minute.
She risked rising up slightly to look back up the street for any sign of movement. There was a streetlight just behind her, but the area in front of her was darker, the next streetlight a good way up the block, past her house. There, coming towards her, skirting the line of trash and recycling bins scattered at the curb, she could see a tall form, maybe six cars down. The form crouched down before she could get a good look.
Bree took advantage of the shooter’s self-protective move. She ran straight across the street, between two more parked cars, and kept going, across the sidewalk, through what felt like an endless, open stretch of lawn, heading between two houses, hoping against hope she wasn’t about to run smack into a fence. She didn’t get far before she found one, but there was a gate.
She fumbled at the cold latch, which was wet from the earlier rain. As she felt it release, she pushed against the gate while glancing over her shoulder, and felt a hot shock of electric panic as she saw the shooter starting across the street towards her. Again, all she registered was what looked like a tall person, dressed in black, before she was off and running again after shoving the gate closed behind her.
A wood fence about six feet high enclosed the back yard she’d entered. It was fairly thickly planted with shrubs and a few trees around the perimeter, and her instinctive impulse was to hide in the darkest corner she could find. But then she would be trapped. She glanced frantically around as she dashed across the yard, looking for another gate. She found none. She had enough adrenaline racing through her system that she wondered if she’d somehow be able to grab the top of the fence and vault herself over into the next yard, but even while she pictured it, she knew it wouldn’t work. She just didn’t have that kind of upper body strength.
She heard the sound of the gate latch behind her, and she had to make a decision, fast. She veered toward one of the trees at the back of the yard, up against the fence, and leapt for a sturdy branch, hands grabbing for the rough bark as her feet scrambled for purchase on the trunk. She had just managed to get her left foot wedged between th
e trunk and a lower branch when she felt something whizz by her head at the same time as she heard another crack.
Panicked, she pushed off with her foot and launched herself along the branch, towards the fence. The branch bent under weight as she got her feet under her, and she started to lose her balance. In a desperation move, she dove for the top of the fence, slamming into it painfully as she got an arm hooked over the top. Her feet scrambled for purchase, one of them getting tangled in the smaller tree branches. Why wasn’t the shooter firing again? Was he reloading?
She finally got enough leverage with her left foot that she was able to push off and get her right knee over the top of the fence. Without thought to what might be on the other side, she rolled herself over the top just as another crack and echo rang out. She landed on her back on the ground, scraping her side on something sharp as she went down. Her breath was knocked out of her and she was unable to move for several precious seconds. She heard the sound of the shooter scrambling into the tree on the other side of the fence.
Bree managed to pull in a gasping breath and forced herself onto her side, then her knees, and up onto her feet, legs shaking. She tried to run and at first could only stagger, slipping on the wet grass beneath her feet. It only took her a moment to realize that this yard was fenced also, but there was a clear path to a gate. She noticed lights on in the house, saw a figure moving in front of the window, and had a brief desire to run up to the back door and pound on it, begging to be let in, but it would take too much time, and she'd be illuminated by the light from the window, making herself an easy target. She got to the gate and got it open as she heard a thump behind her, the shooter landing on her side of the fence. She ran down the walkway at the side of the house, then out across a short stretch of lawn and onto the street front sidewalk. She veered diagonally across the street, back towards her house. That was her ultimate destination, but she quickly realized she was too exposed. Her glance raked the two houses in front of her, and she rapidly calculated what she could remember about how the yards were laid out, where the fences might be. If she could just weave in and out of various yards, she might lose the shooter. She took her best guess and dashed between the green Craftsman bungalow and the boxy grey house.
Her back felt horribly exposed as she ran, and sure enough, she heard two quick pops as the shooter tried for her again. A splinter of wood torn from the edge of the grey house struck her cheek as she passed. Already, she felt exhausted, but that put a fresh burst of power into her shaky legs.
She had remembered correctly, and there was no fence between her and the next back yard. She took an angle to the right as she ran toward the side of the house on the next block over. She thought she heard running footsteps behind her. She made it around the corner of the house, through the two squares of light from the house’s windows, and out onto the front yard.
Why me? she couldn't help thinking as she ran. Who was she such a threat to that they were trying to kill her? She calculated a circular course that would hopefully throw off her pursuer and land her closer to her house. She ran across a front yard back to the left, across the yard of the next house, then around the corner of that one, back the way she had come, towards her own block.
This house was completely dark. She scurried down the side of the house, trying to make as little sound as possible, and got around the back corner, where she stopped, listening for signs of pursuit. All she could hear was her own panting breaths.
Cautiously, she crept along the back of the house, expecting at any moment to be ambushed. She saw she was four houses down from her own house at this point, but every back yard between where she stood and her own was encircled with fences . She would have to go back around front.
She trotted as lightly as possible across the yard, trying to keep to the shadows cast by the house and by the few trees. She made it back between the green and grey houses again without hearing anything else, and she began to wonder if she’d outsmarted the shooter. She paused when she got back to her street, looking up and down for any sign of movement. She didn’t see any. She had the animal impulse to make a straight run for her house, a rabbit racing for its hole, but she couldn’t afford to assume that the shooter was still looking for her on the next block over. For all she knew, he was taking aim at her right this second.
She skirted the bushes in front the green house and paused again to glance quickly around the corner to see if the shooter might be coming up on that side of the house. She didn’t see anything, so she sprinted across the gap between the houses. She did the same for the next two houses, then looked carefully behind her. Nothing.
The view of her own house was blocked by the house in front of her, as hers was set back further from the street. Clearly, the shooter knew where to find her house, so there was no reason he couldn't have maneuvered himself back there. Bree could very well be running straight toward him.
But she didn't have much choice. How likely was it that she could continue to elude her pursuer in the mad, nightmarish dash around the neighborhood? Warding spells were ready and waiting to be set at her house. She made the split second decision to make for home rather than trying for her car. She dashed across the front yard of her next door neighbor, already fumbling in her coat pocket for her keys, turned the corner, and ran straight into Leander Rayne.
Leander grasped Bree by the shoulders, preventing her from bowling him over. She looked up at him with terror written all over her face, revealed in the dim glow of her front porch light. Terror was replaced by recognition, and she flung her arms around his waist and buried her head against his chest. “Leander, thank God!” she gasped against him. His arms went around her, seemingly at their own volition. He felt something turn over inside of him. She pulled back again immediately and said breathlessly, “Quick, inside, now, someone’s been shooting at me!”
He followed her up onto her porch as she got her keys into the lock and pushed open the door. He threw up a ward and scanned the street behind them, and sure enough, he saw a figure ghost into view. There wasn’t much light on this part of the street, but there was enough to make out the familiar features of Franchesca Gambrini as she raised her arms, bringing her gun up to bear on him. He saw her lips quirk into a smile just as he pushed Bree through the door ahead of him and slammed it shut behind them and locked it.
Shit, she’d seen him, and she’d been more than willing to shoot him. That bitch wasn’t just demon burned, she was full out crazy. How did she think she was going to justify killing him to Marton? Or, for that matter, killing Bree before she’d been wrung dry of whatever information she had? As he followed Bree into her living room, mind racing, he suddenly recalled Marton telling him he could kill Bree when he was done with her. He remembered the look of Franchesca’s face. That was it, she was going to kill Bree and pin it on him.
He felt Bree trigger her house wards, and he was impressed with their strength. He wondered if Daniel or Kevin had put them up for her. He came up beside Bree and grabbed her wrist as she reached for the switch on the floor lamp next to her couch. “Don’t,” he said quietly.
“Right,” she replied faintly. She dropped her hand, but he didn’t let go of her wrist. They stood quietly for a minute, both straining for sounds that might mean Franchesca was going to try to get into the house, or test the house wards by taking a shot at them through the windows. When no sounds came, Leander said, “Go ahead and pull all the curtains, but don’t stand in front of the windows as you do it.” She nodded, and he released her. He watched as she angled up to the living room window and pulled the curtains to with quick jerks. She went into the dining room and did the same, and he heard her pulling blinds shut in the kitchen.
Bree came back to where he was standing, pulling off her coat as she went. She threw it down on a chair, then wrapped her arms around herself. It was dark with all the curtains drawn, and Leander couldn’t make out her expression. He’d been so angry all the way over here, but now that Bree was standing in front
of him, clearly trying to hold herself together, the anger drained right out of him, replaced by tiredness and an unwilling, automatic calculation. She was feeling vulnerable, and here he was, just in time to protect her and comfort her. He couldn’t have asked for a better in.
He closed the distance between her and put an arm gently around her shoulders. “Come on, let’s sit down a minute.” He guided her to the couch and sat next to her, arm still around her shoulders. She felt rigid beneath his touch, but he didn’t think it was because he was touching her. His Reader sense had come up as soon as she ran into him, and it was clear she was frightened and a bit in shock.
“Do you think I should call the police? Or maybe the Keepers?” she asked softly.
“The Keepers if anyone,” he replied, matching his tone to hers. It felt right to keep the lights off, keep their voices low. “I can’t imagine a normal trying to kill you. It has to have something to do with the Keltoi. But honestly, by the time a Keeper gets here, I’m sure the shooter will be gone.”
“Do you think he’s out there right now? Will he try to get in the house?”
Leander wasn’t about to correct her error in thinking the shooter was a man. Given the story he’d spun Bree before, there was no way he should have known who Franchesca was. He shook his head. “I doubt it. There’s more evidence in a break and enter situation. Unless you’re very careful, you’re going to miss something, leave something behind that could get you nailed, either forensic evidence normal cops can find, or the kind of evidence a good Caster can work with. It’s safer to kill someone out on the street.”
He felt Bree shiver. “You’d think I’d be used to this by now, but I’m not. I just can’t get over thinking that I’m nobody. I’m not the kind of person someone else would want to kill.”
