Tasting Fear

by Shannon McKenna

  Jack pitched into a forward roll, leaped to his feet, and whipped his leg up, knocking the gun out of the man’s hands. It hit the wall, fell to the floor. His own gun swung up, took aim—

  “One more move, and her head explodes,” a cracked voice rasped.

  Jack’s head jerked around. A hideous gnome clutched Vivi’s trussed body against his. His pistol was shoved under her chin. Her breath hitched. Her bright eyes were fixed on Jack’s. They were wide and desperate.

  The old goblin giggled shrilly. “Drop the gun. Or I’ll kill her.”

  Jack doubted that was true. Whatever their kinky plans were, they involved live D’Onofrio women, not dead ones. But he could be wrong. And his whole universe hung on that yes-or-no question.

  He would far rather die than get it wrong.

  The old guy edged along the wall, dragging Vivi’s slight body for a shield. “Drop the gun!” he shrilled. “I will kill her!” He jabbed the barrel against Vivi’s soft, white throat. She made a desperate, choking sound.

  Jack’s hands opened. The H&K dropped to the floor.

  “Cut her hands and feet free,” the old guy ordered curtly.

  The younger man gave him a stupid, confused look. “Huh?”

  “She must drive the van, you moron!” the old man shrieked.

  Jack watched, paralyzed as the man sliced the ropes near Vivi’s wrists. She winced. He slashed between her ankles.

  “Kick the gun to me,” the young guy growled.

  In the seconds that followed, every detail was printed and burned into Jack’s memory. He stared into Vivi’s eyes, tried to scream through the silent realms of eternity that he loved her. Hoping she’d hear.

  And suddenly, she wrenched out of the old guy’s grip and head-butted the bastard.

  The old man screamed, stumbled back. The big guy swung a savage backhand blow that knocked her sprawling. The old man squeezed off a shot at him, then another. Both went wild. The guy didn’t have the strength to aim the thing accurately. But he didn’t need to, to kill Vivi. Not at that range.

  Jack was in motion, kicking his gun to the corner. His boot whipped up to crack into the big guy’s jaw. The old man scooped the dazed Vivi up, arms locked under her armpits, gun shoved in the hollow of her cheek. “Deal with him!” he yelled. “Meet at the rendezvous point!”

  The big guy lunged with a knife. Part of Jack’s brain dealt with weaving and dancing to avoid the blade, while the old man herded the stumbling Vivi to the passenger’s side of the van, bullied her into the driver’s side, and climbed in behind, jabbing the gun into her ear. He could hear the man’s shrill, scolding voice from in here.

  The van’s engine roared, the lights flicked on. It squealed backward, and accelerated out of his line of vision. Gone. Nothing to concentrate on except not getting cut. And keeping that berserker son of a bitch too busy to get near the guns on the floor. He arched back to let a huge boot whoosh through the space where his face would have been, then spun to the side to avoid a knee to the gut. He took an uppercut to the nose that sent him spinning into a rib-crunching whack against the cement-block wall.

  Pain and lost breath cost him a precious fraction of a second. The blade whipped down. Jack jerked to the side. The tip hit cement, bounced, skittered, stung the top of his shoulder. His knee jabbed up into the guy’s balls. The man lurched back, bellowing.

  They circled each other, breath rasping. The other man lunged, and Jack saw the movement broken down to infinite increments. Parry with his forearm, spin until he was side to side, seize the knife hand between scissored wrists, torque until the guy screamed, doubling over. The knife clattered to the ground. Jack applied more pressure, whipped a vicious side kick into the side of the knee, guided the top of his head toward the wall—and swung him, hard, like a battering ram.

  His opponent thudded to the ground, the crown of his head wet with blood. A red, bloody smear on the wall. Jack stared down, breath jerking in and out, every limb trembling. Trying to think. Hard, with combat hormones flooding his system. Sirens wailed, far away. Myra had called the cops. Good, but he could not stay to talk to them. Every second that passed widened the space between himself and Vivi. He touched the big guy’s carotid artery. Alive. He was tempted to kill him, just to have one more player off the board. But he would have to change into a different person to kill an unconscious man.

  He didn’t want to be that person. He couldn’t bring himself to do it.

  Let the cops take care of him. He scooped up the guns and leaped over the bulk of the fallen man to jerk open the bathroom door.

  Edna leaped into his arms, shaking and whining. Jack ran for the truck, tossed the dog through the door. He burned rubber, turning out of the lot just as sirens approached from the opposite direction.

  He jerked the wheel around, fishtailing to a shuddering stop at Dwayne Pritchett’s gas station, at Pebble River’s exit from the highway.

  Dwayne jogged forward, his big, ruddy face alarmed. “Jesus, what the fuck? Were you in a car accident?”

  Jack realized abruptly that his nose was streaming blood, all the way down over his chin. His shoulder was wet with blood as well, from the knife wound. “I’m fine,” he said tersely. “Did you see Vivi’s van?”

  “Yeah, I seen it come by here. Going hell for leather. Didn’t stop at the sign. Took the turn on two wheels. Big fuckin’ hurry. Did Vivi do that damage to you? Jesus, she must have been pissed as hell. Wadja do to her, for Chrissakes? You want to come in and clean up that—”

  “Which way did she go?” Jack roared.

  Dwayne nodded toward the northbound road. “Thataway.”

  Jack gathered up the shivering golden dog, pushed his door open, and shoved the animal into Dwayne’s arms. “Vivi’s dog. Look after her.”

  “But…but I…but you—”

  “Later!” The truck leaped forward, squealing toward the exit.

  “Faster!” Haupt shrieked. “Drive faster, you stupid bitch!”

  Vivi pushed down on the accelerator. Not much point telling the guy that her decrepit van was already making a valiant effort, and didn’t have any more speed in her. The frame of the vehicle shuddered scarily, as it was. Or maybe the shuddering came from inside her own self.

  They were on the northbound Kaneset Highway, which looped alongside the steep-banked, meandering Kaneset River. Haupt rolled down his window, stuck his empurpled face out to drag in air.

  She was in conflict. A quick, fiery death after a few seconds of falling through midair was a far better death than the one Haupt had described for her. But what about Jack? He’d come back for her.

  In back of the panic and terror was a thread of music in her head, sweet and poignant. She hung on to it, and with it, to her sanity.

  He’d come for her. How had he found her? How had he known? It made the prospect of driving off a cliff oh, so much harder to accept.

  She tried to concentrate on high-speed driving. No future, no past. Just this breath, into her lungs. Just this heartbeat, then the next, and she was grateful for every one of them, even with a gun to her head. She hoped he was okay. Please. He’d come back for her.

  “What are you smiling at, you insolent slut?” Haupt shrilled. “Are you laughing at me?” He jabbed the gun into her ear.

  The van lurched and wove. “No! I wasn’t, I wasn’t!”

  She reached down with her left hand to touch the tire iron. The road ahead did a hairpin and started to gain altitude. Farther on, the road was high over the canyon. Any further attempt to drive off the road once she drove higher would result in certain death. This turn coming up was her last chance at a slightly more favorable compromise with certain death. Right…now.

  She widened the turn, wrenched the wheel, and braked, violently. Haupt lurched forward, holding out his arms to brace himself. Vivi whipped the tire iron down over his forearms. Crack.

  He screamed. The gun dropped. She spun the tires in the gravel, accelerating, gaining the crest…tipping over the
top. They were sliding and bouncing down the other side, tipping crazily, and Haupt screamed, scrambling for the gun, but the van bounced wildly in every direction as it rattled down the steep slope of rock and shale—

  It hit a large rock at the river’s edge, knocking them forward. The van teetered, tipped, hung on two wheels for what felt like eternity….

  And flopped onto its side into the river, Haupt’s side down. She slid down on top of him. Icy water flooded from the open window into the van. They were a screaming, struggling knot, fighting, clawing. She couldn’t let him find that gun. His strangling grip was like the gigantic kraken of the abyss. The water bubbled in, swirling, getting higher.

  She struggled up, yanking the steering wheel, trying to trample him down beneath her feet. The van was tipping, moving. If water covered the top of her side, she’d never get the door open. She shoved the door above her, expecting a bullet to punch into her at any second from below.

  Haupt still struggled, but his head was below the water level. The water was up to her chest now, gurgling and swirling.

  Haupt seized her ankle and chomped. She screamed, struggled. He looked up from beneath the water, a blaze of mad hatred in his eyes. Bubbles rose from his mouth. The water gurgled higher.

  She thought about the tattoos he was going to keep for his album. Her hair, which he wanted for a trophy. She put her feet on his shoulders, holding him down as she shoved herself up, and pushed the van door completely open. The van was moving with the current. She saw Haupt’s briefcase, bobbing on the surface next to the steering wheel, and grabbed for it. His hand still clung to it.

  She yanked. He gave her one last hateful look before his eyes went blank. He was dead, floating in the water.

  Vivi clambered out and pitched herself into the river, shocked by the violence of the current. It tossed her like a twig. She couldn’t swim in any direction. All she could do was try to stay afloat as she zipped along, fighting her way toward the rocky shore. She almost let the briefcase go, but they had suffered so much for those necklaces. She stuck the handle in her chattering teeth and struggled vainly with the current.

  The van floated behind her for a while, until the last air bubble inside disgorged itself. A half mile or so later, she managed to grab on to a rock at the edge of the water. She crawled onto it, shaking so hard, she could barely make her muscles function. She spat out the case. Her jaw ached with effort. Her teeth were going to fall out for the clacking.

  She clung there, like a wet rag. Just trying to breathe.

  Jack jerked to a stop at the skid marks, his heart thudding. He leaped out, staring at the trough the vehicle had made as it slid down into the water. His guts were a knot. His mind rejected the most probable outcome, but the rest of his being shook with fear.

  He vaulted over the gravel slope of the road’s shoulder and slid in the loose shale to the water’s edge. He followed the current, hopping rocks, clambering on boulders, slogging through water. He had to swim through cliff-lined channels, prying himself out of the current’s grip just before he got sucked into rapids. He finally spotted her, across the river. Spread out on a rock as if she’d washed up on it. Facedown, wet hair spread around her. He screamed her name, over and over. She did not move.

  He dove back in, fighting the water. Got across, God alone knew how. He crawled up. Rolled her over gently, with shaking hands.

  Her eyes opened, looked into his. He was so relieved, he burst into tears, and dropped his face against her chest. Her skin was ice cold.

  She was alive. His soul shook.

  It took them a long, staggering time to get back to his truck. He would have carried her if he could, but they couldn’t go back the way he’d come, not with those channels, those sheer cliffs. He couldn’t dump her into that current again, and the only alternative was to climb straight up, to the road far above them. They had to scramble and claw their way up slippery rock faces, and Vivi could barely keep upright.

  Jack’s relief at finding her alive was undercut by growing fear. Her face was so white, her eyes so shadowed. She couldn’t stop shaking, kept falling down. She could hardly speak. When they finally crawled onto the asphalt of the highway, he picked her up.

  She protested, weakly, but her voice was slurred.

  He sped to town, squealed to a stop outside the emergency room at the hospital. They caused a big stir, and things moved with gratifying speed as the EMT techs got Vivi squared away. He was annoyed, afterward, to find some of the EMT techs wanted to fuss over him, too. Fucking waste of time. He’d prefer if they left him alone and concentrated on Vivi.

  He begged a cell phone off one of the EMT techs, and called a guy he knew in the local cop shop. “Hey, Tim? It’s Jack Kendrick.”

  “Holy shit, man!” Tim exploded. “Where the hell are you?”

  “Later for that. That son of a bitch who was lying in Unit 42 of Evergreen Acres. Do you guys have him in custody?”

  Tim hesitated. “Uh…are you okay, Jack?”

  “I’m fine. What about the guy in Unit 42? He’s a serial killer.”

  “There was no guy in Unit 42,” Tim said. “Just a trashed room, blood on the floor, and a bunch of bullet holes. Whatever happened in there, we missed it. Would have been really helpful if you’d been around to clue us into the serial killer thing, because he didn’t hang around, either. And the chief was unthrilled with you for fucking off before you could give a statement. What were you thinking?”

  Jack blew out a long shuddering sigh, feeling the cold sink more deeply into his bones. “You have no idea,” he muttered.

  He hung up, passed the phone back, and ripped the IV needle out of his arm, ignoring the shouts and scolding lectures. He grabbed a chair and situated it outside the curtained cubicle where Vivi lay, a vantage point that gave him a clear view of both ends of the corridor plus the lobby entrance. Almost hoping the guy would make a move.

  So he could fucking finish this, already.

  Vivi drifted in and out of consciousness on the drive into Portland. She shifted in the seat, keeping her eyes closed. She didn’t have the nerve to talk to Jack and ask him how he felt. What it all meant. If he had changed his mind about the two of them, or if he was just being righteous and heroic. A guy’s gotta do what a guy’s gotta do, yada yada and all that. His grim, taut face discouraged confidences.

  He’d bullied the hospital into letting her leave after only twenty-four hours, and there had been a big kerfuffle. Lots of shouting about security and danger and attackers. The angry doctors made her sign a waiver accepting responsibility, which she’d been glad to do, though her fingers barely felt the pen, as she floated in a Demerol cloud. Even stoned out of her mind, she knew which side her bread was buttered on. When it came to the Fiend, EMT techs and nurses weren’t enough protection, not by a long shot. Jack Kendrick was the man. Hands down. She’d stick with him.

  Margaret had come by that morning, bringing Jack some clothes, and one of her own warm-up suits for Vivi. Eggshell blue, spattered with yellow daisies. Wow. Very special. But still, she was grateful.

  “I’m flying to New York,” she announced, bracing herself.

  “That’s the last place you should go!” Jack exploded. “John told you he’d hired an army. We’ve warned your sisters and their men. Do you want to face an army? Those guys weren’t enough of a challenge?”

  “It’s not that,” she said. “I can’t live like this. I have to resolve this thing. No matter what. You do what you want. I’m flying to New York.”

  Jack muttered something foul under his breath.

  The earliest flight they could find with seats available left the following morning. Too long to wait, but no choice. They checked into an airport Ramada. When they were locked in their room, Jack laid his pistol on the kitchenette counter. “I’m taking a shower,” he announced. “I’m still cold, from that river. You all right out here?” He waited for her nod, his eyes still doubtful. “Don’t open the door to anyone,” he added.

>   As if. She rolled her eyes. He disappeared into the bathroom.

  She felt like a puppet with the strings cut. Limp, now that she didn’t have his hot, vital energy to struggle against. She curled up on the bed and thought it through.

  She had to be realistic. She had nothing to offer Jack except a crushing burden of danger, financial drain, and constant, grinding stress. He’d already risked his life. Dodging bullets and knives, diving into wild water. A man couldn’t marry a risk like that. Or have children with her. She’d be stupid to demand promises from him now.

  This, however, did not mean she was going to deny herself the comfort of his body. Life was short and uncertain.

  She listened at the bathroom door to the shower hiss. She caught a glimpse of herself, in the prim, daisy-spattered warm-up suit, and sputtered with laughter. Whoo-hoo. Seductive. She stripped it off, and waited for the shower to stop, shivering in the air-conditioned chill.

  When she opened the door, his startled face made her smile, catlike. She laid the gun on the counter by the bathroom sink. The room was a fragrant fog of steam. The bruises on his face were taking form.

  Maybe she was presuming too much. Maybe he was too stressed, too injured and exhausted—or, um…maybe not. His cock was pointing straight at her, in seconds flat. “What’s this, Viv?” he asked.

  She touched the dripping, gleaming contours of his body. “Just living in the moment.”

  He flinched. “Don’t throw that in my face. We need to talk.”

  “No, we don’t,” she said quietly. “No past. No future. Just now.”

  He looked worried. “How long do we have to play this game?”

  “How long is irrelevant, when you’re in the moment,” she said. “Only now exists. You should know that. Aren’t you the expert?”