Driven

by Rebecca Zanetti

  “Right here.” She lifted her gun and pointed it at his head.

  He paused. “What the hell are you doing?’

  Reaching for the bookcase behind herself, she tossed a pair of handcuffs at him. “In front is fine.”

  He caught the cuffs, his head spinning. “I’m not the threat, Administrator. What happened to Quan?”

  She smiled then, and the world ground to a stop. Holy shit. Quan hadn’t been the threat, but his lover had? Could Angus raise his gun fast enough?

  “You won’t make it, and believe me, you don’t want to die yet,” she said quietly, no emotion in her eyes. “The game is just getting interesting. I need you alive for now.”

  The game? Lassiter’s last few quoted poems ran through Angus’s head. This was crazy. Insane, actually. “It’s your face haunting Lassiter?” Angus shook his head, trying to angle his body between the woman and the breakfast nook.

  “I have a clear line on Quan’s head right now,” Opal said easily. “You take one more step and I’m blowing out his brains. What there is of them, that is.”

  Angus stopped moving. “That last email. The one about maternal energy that brought me right here. That was from you.”

  “Of course. Email is such a tacky way to correspond, but you were using a burner phone, so I didn’t have the number. More importantly, the blonde with the shovel hasn’t been found yet, so the note next to her body is useless right now. I was under a bit of a time crunch here, Angus.” She glanced down at her watch. “Cuff yourself or I shoot your girlfriend’s father. Now.”

  Angus stared at her. If he leapt at her, she’d get a shot off first.

  “Oh. Drop your gun.” She settled her stance and aimed at Quan’s head.

  Angus set his gun on the arm of the sofa and quickly cuffed his wrists together. He could fight with his hands bound if necessary, but he had to get her away from Quan. “You’re gonna have to catch me up here, Administrator. You’re working with Lassiter?”

  “I’d say working with is a misnomer,” she said.

  None of this was making a damn lick of sense. Angus saw that Quan was beginning to stir. He had to distract her. “What’s your plan now?”

  Her smile revealed the megalomania that lurked deep within her ambition. “Now? Oh, now we’re going to go visit an old friend of yours.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Nari finished some instant oatmeal she’d found in the back of Jethro’s cupboard while Roscoe slept near her barstool. She glanced at her watch again. Angus had been gone for nearly an hour and there had been no word so far. Was Opal safe? Was Quan safe? She set her spoon down in the empty bowl and swallowed rapidly.

  There had to be something she could do.

  Jethro had gone to work, saying he only had one class and would be back. With Roscoe at her feet and the door double-locked, she was safe but useless. There had to be a way to help. She looked at her watch again.

  Time was moving too slowly.

  Her phone tinkled a cheery tune and she picked it up. “Hi, Mom.” It’d be good to hear her mother’s voice.

  “Hi, sweetie. Where are you?” Her mom sounded upbeat.

  “I’m at a friend’s house,” Nari said, pushing away the bowl.

  Her mom was quiet for a moment. “Well, okay. The car at the airport was nice, but I figured you’d be here when we arrived.”

  Nari jerked fully alert. “Arrived? Where are you?”

  “At your apartment, of course. It’s a good thing I still had that spare key from when I visited in the spring.” Her mom sounded matter-of-fact. “Are you coming home soon?”

  “Mom? Where’s Dad?” Nari asked, running to the door, panic heating her lungs until it hurt to gasp a breath.

  “He’s planning to beat that Angus Force to death. We couldn’t believe it when we received your email about him being a killer. I even watched a news report on him on the plane ride here.” Her mom clicked her tongue.

  “Mom? Where’s Dad?” Nari insisted.

  Her mother sighed. “There’s not a thing in your fridge, so your dad took that nice rental car to the store. You remember the one where they make the homemade pasta that we found last time? Well, he’s there, and I’m planning to cook—”

  “Mom? Get out of there. Get out of my apartment and run to the neighbor’s. Right now.” Nari yanked open the door and ran outside into the hallway.

  “What? Why—” Her mom screamed, and the sounds of a struggle came over the line.

  “Mom!” Nari yelled, taking the cement stairs two at a time.

  The scuffle continued, and then silence. The phone went dead. “Mom!” Nari yelled again, running outside into the rain and straight for her rental car. Nothing. Nobody was there. She quickly dialed Brigid while jumping in the car.

  “You’ve got Brigid,” Brigid answered.

  “Bridge? Send the police to my apartment right now. As fast as you can,” Nari directed, starting the engine and gunning the car out of the narrow alley by the industrial building. “I think Lassiter has my mom.” Tears choked her throat and she drove faster, trying to see through the rain and her tears.

  Rapid typing came over the line. “I just sent the local police and transmitted an alert to HDD agents,” Brigid said urgently. “They’re on the way. Tell me where you are.”

  “I’m on my way there. Just a second.” Nari sped up, zooming through the industrial park. She put Brigid on hold and punched in Angus’s burner-phone number. It went to the automated voice mail. “It’s Nari. Call me. Lassiter has my mom.” She hung up and returned to Brigid. “I’m back.” She swerved through the gates onto a busy street, ignoring the angry honking from other drivers.

  “I sent out a call to the team, and Wolfe and Raider are headed your way. Malcolm is locking down the cul-de-sac. I’ll stay here at the computers,” Brigid said, her Irish brogue thick with emotion. “She’ll be okay, Nari. We’ll get there.”

  Nari couldn’t breathe. She swung around a white SUV and punched the gas pedal to the floor, flipping on the windshield wipers as she did so. Her mom had to be okay. “He must’ve sent them an email from me with tickets. Even had a rental car waiting,” she gasped.

  Brigid kept quiet. “Metro is two minutes away from your apartment. Just hold on.”

  Nari drove faster, weaving through traffic, nearly jumping the curb twice. She sped away from the commercial area, winding by the trees that marked a nicer suburban area. The world flew by outside her car. Her hands shook, but she kept going as fast as possible.

  A van shot out of a side street, clipping the back of her car. She screamed as the car spun wildly around and plunged into a tree. The airbag shot out, smashing into her face. It slowly deflated, tossing powder in the air as it did so.

  “Nari!” Brigid yelled over the phone.

  The world buzzed. Nari shook her head and tried to clear her vision. Had she just hit somebody? She fumbled for the phone. Something wet trickled down the side of her face.

  Her door was ripped open and rough hands yanked her out. She tried to protest, lifting her arms, but the man didn’t relent. Her head swam. Nausea attacked her, and she finally focused on the face of the man pulling her.

  “Lassiter,” she mumbled, right before he placed a rag over her nose and mouth.

  Then there was only darkness.

  * * *

  “Nari. Wake up.” A gentle nudge prodded Nari’s shoulder.

  She groaned and opened her eyelids, instantly regretting it as pain exploded down her face. Coughing, she shut her eyes until she could slowly open them without crying. Where was she? What had happened?

  “Nari?”

  “Mom?” Nari partially turned as memories slammed into her faster than the van had earlier. She sat up and instantly swayed, becoming dizzy. “Ugh.” She blinked several times and tried to focus her eyes.

  A soft hand smoothed back her hair. “Take a minute. You’re okay.”

  Her mom’s voice calmed her a little. She opened her eyes t
o see her mom sitting next to her, eyes wide with concern. “There you go.”

  The floor was hard underneath softness. Nari looked down to see a royal-blue rug with gold trim. They were in a small, barred cell across from what looked like a morgue table. Her body went cold. “Where are we?”

  Her mom sat with her legs extended on the carpet. “In a basement. I woke up here with you.” She rubbed a bruise along her jawline. “The guy took me by surprise. You?”

  Nari nodded. “I think he rammed my car.” The memory of Lassiter pulling her out of the car shot through her, followed by a strong dose of panic. “We have to get out of here.” She stood and studied the cell. Two sides looked like solid cement, while two had long, steel bars set into the concrete floor. Going to the door, she pulled on it, but it was locked securely.

  Two royal-blue, high-back, baroque-style chairs were placed facing the cell on the left side, while straight ahead was the makeshift morgue, complete with surgical implements on a counter. The cement floor was stained a dark red, especially around a drain near the table.

  The oatmeal in Nari’s stomach lurched around and she swallowed rapidly. They had to get free. Her gaze shifted back to the chairs. Why were there two chairs? That was odd.

  A door beyond one of the cement walls opened and closed, and a man turned the corner. “Well, hello.”

  Nari put herself between her mother and the cell bars, staring at Henry Wayne Lassiter. He wore black slacks and a dark sweater, and a scar marred the right side of his jaw, as if he’d had several surgeries. His dark-blond hair swept back from his face, thick and wavy, as if he was the protagonist in a 1980s romcom. His blue eyes were razor sharp and lacked any semblance of humanity. Even so, intelligence shone bright.

  From her research on him, he was a classic narcissist and sociopath with psychopathic tendencies. There was no reasoning with him or getting him to see her or her mother as human beings. He didn’t experience empathy.

  He was motivated only by self-interest and his own feeling of superiority. “You can’t kill us,” she said quietly.

  He smiled and walked to the nearest chair, limping slightly with his left leg. “I do like it when they beg.” His voice was scarily raspy.

  “I’m not begging,” Nari said, fighting to keep her voice from trembling. “I’m saying that if you kill us, Angus will leave town. He’ll bury himself in the middle of nowhere with a mountain of whiskey and not look back. The game will be over, and nobody will challenge you like that again. Ever.”

  “That’s not what happened when I killed his sweet sister,” Lassiter said, settling back in the chair as if chatting with a friend.

  Nari smiled, but her lips wobbled, so she stopped. “True, but times have changed. He wouldn’t be able to take two deaths like that.”

  Lassiter slowly shook his head. “I know my friend better than you do. He was obsessed with finding me before, and once I cut you up, piece by piece, he’ll have no choice but to continue the game.”

  Nari’s mother made a distressed sound behind her, and Nari straightened. “He won’t continue any sort of game with you. I promise.”

  Lassiter flattened his hand over his thigh and rubbed it. “Angus will be so proud of how I’ve overcome all those bullets.”

  Proud? The nutjob wanted Angus to be proud? “He’d admire you more if you let us go,” Nari said. “In fact, it’d make him wonder more about you. About figuring you out, because that’d be a shock to him.”

  Lassiter smiled. “You’re a smart one. Figures. My Angus would only like an intelligent woman.” He sighed. “Well, friendships are two-way streets, no? I should have my needs met, too. If I eat the heart of the woman he loves, I’ll always have a part of him, too.”

  Nari’s mom gagged.

  “While that’s interesting logic,” Nari said, “I think you should intrigue him instead. Throw him a curveball. Let us go and make him worry about why.” She was grasping at straws, but it was all she had right now. The stun guns mounted on the wall behind the two chairs promised there wouldn’t be any sort of a fair fight here.

  “I do like your line of thinking, but I don’t have the time required to play a long game with you. The rest of the team will have to do, and it’ll be lovely watching them witness Angus’s descent into that dark place only I have been able to take him.” Lassiter pressed his fingers together, watching his narrow hands. “It has to be you, Nari. Your mama is just a bonus.” His smile revealed a flash of the evil inside him.

  How was she going to get her mother out of this? Nari looked around the room. How many women had he butchered here? “Why are you under a time constraint?”

  “It’s a long story.” He picked off a piece of lint from his pants leg.

  There was only one solution. Nari took a deep breath. “Let my mom go. Seeing her fear and stress after you kill me will only torture Angus more.”

  “No.” Her mom pushed her to the side. “Take me. Let her go.”

  Lassiter’s blue gaze narrowed. “So that’s what a mother’s love really looks like.” He tilted his head to the side. “I wonder if I’ll feel such sweet warmth when I eat your heart.”

  Nari scrambled for a way to turn his attention. “It’s my heart you want. Taking two of us at a time breaks your pattern. It’s not what you want and it’ll lead to bad luck. Very bad luck.”

  He laughed. “I like how your mind works. To be honest, I’ve never eaten a brain. Yours might be interesting.”

  She stepped away from the bars. Once he went for a stun gun, she was out of options. “You have changed your routine, haven’t you? Why?” she asked.

  He lifted his chin. “I was in rehab for a long time, and then I took counseling from a friend in this game. Well, somewhat.”

  The door out of sight opened loudly. Who was coming? Nari stiffened, trying to see.

  Lassiter turned, the smile sliding from a face that most women would consider good-looking if they couldn’t see beneath to the monster. “What in the world have you done?”

  Angus came into view, his wrists handcuffed together.

  “Angus,” Nari breathed, rushing to the bars. She grabbed them. What was going on?

  Opal walked behind him, her gun pressed to his back. Was this some type of rescue plan? What was happening? Nari stared at the woman, who was staring at Lassiter.

  The two chairs. Wait a minute. Oh, crap.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  The second Angus saw Nari’s terrified eyes, he settled. Everything inside him went calm and cold. He tilted his head to stare at Lassiter. “Looks like the bullet to the face did some damage.”

  Delight filtered across Lassiter’s face. “Angus, my friend. It’s nice to have you in my space, but this is much too early.” He cranked his head to look beyond Angus. “Opal? The game is over. I have Nari in my cage.”

  Opal pushed the gun barrel harder against Angus’s spine. “She’s still alive with a beating heart, so I’d say we’re at a tie.”

  Nari stumbled back from the bars, her face going pale. “Opal?”

  Angus scanned the entire area with his peripheral vision. Opal had refused to talk on the way here, promising that all his questions would be answered when the time was right. Not that he hadn’t figured a lot of it out already. “Here’s what I think.” He kept his focus on Lassiter to hold his attention.

  Lassiter rubbed a scar on the lower half of his jaw as he stood and turned to face them. “This is quite inappropriate, Opal. You’ve pushed our game, but not me. He can’t be here right now. I’m not done.” The guy sounded like an impetuous child.

  “I can’t very well set him free now,” Opal drawled.

  In a split second Angus decided Opal didn’t exist. “Henry? How long have you and Opal been working together?”

  Henry smiled, his face clearing. “For about seven years. I take care of problems for her and she does the same for me. She’s smart. You know I like them smart, my friend.”

  Anger spiraled through Angus, and his
laugh felt strained. “Yes, I do. So. That at least explains how your death was faked and you disappeared for rehab. If anybody could make that happen, it’d be the head of the HDD.”

  “Yes.” Lassiter rubbed his thigh, where Angus remembered shooting him. “Unfortunately, rehab took longer than I would’ve hoped. The second I could, I returned here for our game. It was some time after you began looking for me, however. It’s nice that we’re on the same wavelength.”

  Angus shook his head. “So you knew so much about our team because our boss was working with you. I thought it was Quan.”

  Opal shoved Angus harder. “Quan’s a moron. It’s because of me that you’re alive, Henry,” she spat. “You owe me. But the second you were well enough, you wanted to play with him and put my entire career in jeopardy.”

  Oh, this was so fucking weird. Angus continued to ignore her, focusing on Lassiter instead. “I was alerted by Miles Brown, an elderly clerk, that there was a problem with your file, but he had a stroke before I could talk to him.”

  Lassiter inclined his head. “Well, I owe Opal for that. It always comes down to billing and medical records, right? Apparently there was one medical bill still left in that file that Opal hadn’t caught. Miles was no doubt closing out all his records before retiring, and he must’ve caught a hint. Opal took care of him, though.”

  Angus almost shut his eyes, but he had to stay in the moment. He’d grieve for Miles and face his guilt later. The administrator had somehow gotten to the clerk. Strokes were easy to fake. “Henry? What about the female paramedic who pronounced you dead?”

  “Opal again,” Lassiter admitted. “She’s good at making accidents look real. Well, the whole HDD is, actually.” He sighed, as if giving up a secret. “By the time I was well enough to come home, she’d compiled dossiers on everybody in your life. It was like the best birthday present ever.” His gaze finally rose so that he looked over Angus’s shoulder at Opal. “Well, that and the ultimate game, which I didn’t know we were playing for a while.”

  The ultimate game? What? For him? Angus dropped his chin to regain Henry’s attention. “She was trying to kill me, and you were trying to get to Nari? Was it all some narcissistic game between you two? Whoever got there first won?” It made an odd and sick kind of sense. “She shot at me, bombed my house, and hired that blond moron who ended up shooting my lawyer.”