Alistair (Golden Streak Series) (13 page)

“Mrs. Isaac hired you?” She tried to
think why. Then he started talking again and jerked her toward him. “She doesn’t
hate me that much, does she?”

The man was dragging her away from the
car she and Jed had come in, and she was glad. If Jed was alive, he’d not be
shot by this man. She tripped twice and he slammed her against another pylon.

He hit her again just as she felt
something touch her mind. It was Alistair. She was losing her hold on staying
conscious, and screamed at him through their link.
“He’s going to kill me. It’s
Lance’s mom who hired the man to kill me in both places. We’re in the parking
garage at the appliance store on Tenth, and I think Jed is dead. You have to
come and save him, if you can.”

Something moved. She saw it just as her
vision blurred and wondered how in the world Alistair had gotten to her so
quickly. Then the screams. She wasn’t sure if it was her or not because her
body became too heavy for her, and she slipped away.

~~~

Alistair tore from the room and never
looked back. He reached for his brothers and told them to get to her. As soon
as he was in the parking garage, he reached for her again and felt nothing. Terror,
nothing like he’d ever felt in his life shrouded over him like a blanket. He
had to take several deep breaths before he could answer Brock.

“She said that it was Isaac’s mother who
hired the hit man. She said Jed was hurt and to come and save him for her.”
He took another
breath.
“I can’t think. I have no idea where I’m at.”

“I’m driving by the courthouse now, and
I’ll pick you up. Be out front. Can you do that?”
He told him
that he could.
“We’re going to get to her, Alistair. She’s strong and smart.
She’ll be fine.”

What seemed an eternity later, Brock pulled
up in front up the courthouse. He got in the passenger’s seat. Keith was in the
back with Jules. Each man looked as scared as he felt.

“They were at the appliance store on
Tenth Street. I don’t know if I ever knew the name of it.” Brock nodded, taking
a corner a little too sharply as Alistair realized he was babbling. “I have to
find her. All I’m getting is emptiness.”

They pulled up behind the cruiser that
was already there. An ambulance pulled up behind them, and Brock was told he
had to move. When he handed the keys over to Jules, Brock and Keith followed
him into the fray. They were stopped only once, and after that everyone gave
them a wide berth. Alistair wasn’t sure what Brock had said to the cops, but he
was glad now that he’d stopped to pick him up. The man in front of them was a
friend of the family, Shaller James, and he was a wolf. He held him back before
the yellow tape.

“You can’t go in there. Not yet, at any
rate. Do you know the victim?” His world seemed to pin-point for a second, and
the next thing he knew, he was sitting on the floor with his head between his
legs. “I’m sorry, Alistair. I should have said that better. There’s a human
male there with a female cat. I heard you recently took a mate. Tell me what
she looks like.”

He couldn’t speak, but Brock did. He
looked up to see Shaller nodding. “It’s her. She’s out and beaten up pretty
badly, but going to be fine, I think. The man? He’s been mauled to death. But
she didn’t do it.”

“What do you mean she…who else was here?”
Shaller nodded to just behind him, and he saw Jed there. Or at least he thought
it was Jed. The cat staring back at him looked like he’d taken a bath in blood,
and he sat there shivering.

“No one but the two of you, and I know
he’s there. I assume you know him, as well?” Alistair nodded. “He can go home,
but he…I’m not at all sure what happened here, but she’s been beat to shit, and
I’ve a dead man here that has…Christ, he tore him up. I’ll be finding pieces of
him for months.”

“He saved her.” Shaller told him it
looked that way. “I can’t leave him here. The first human who sees him will
kill him.”

 “Get him home with you, please. I’m
going to have your mate taken to the clinic that you run. It’s not closer, but
I think once she wakes she’ll be fine.” Shaller leaned down and spoke to him softly.
“I need a story, Alistair. People are going to panic if they hear a cat was
involved.”

“I’ll take care of it. What are you
saying now?” He told him unknown assailant. “I’ll see what I can do. I’ll talk
to you after I get Ally taken care of. When can I see her?”

A gurney slipped up beside them, and he
stood. He looked down at her face and felt rage at what she looked like. He
looked at Brock.

“Get Jed out of here and I’ll meet you
at the clinic. He’ll… he said he’d never shift again, but he did when she
needed him.”

“I’ll get him out. You make sure you
contact me when you hear anything. After I get him home, I’ll come back.” He nodded
and got into the ambulance with Ally. Her hand was cool but not cold. He held
it all the way to the clinic, thinking about what could have happened. But he
knew one thing for sure. Jed had saved his mate by doing something he’d sworn
he’d never do again. Shifting for his mate had more than likely saved her life,
and Alistair knew that he would owe the man for the rest of his life and then
some.

Chapter 13

Ally felt as if she was rising from a
deep dive. She couldn’t seem to get enough air in her lungs. When she opened
her eyes, she wasn’t sure what she expected to see, but the stranger standing
over her wasn’t it. Her fist connected with his jaw, and he fell away from her.

She tried to sit up, but she hurt. When
she realized she could hear someone laughing, she looked to her right, and
there sat her family. She started crying the moment she saw Alistair.

“Jed. You have to tell me where Jed is. That
man said he’d killed him, but he’s not…what’s so funny?” She glared at Alistair
as the man she’d slugged stood up. He started to back away from her when she
tried to sit up again.

“This is your doctor and my friend, Hansel
Lipscomb. He was checking your vitals when you hit him.” She looked at the man
again. “He said he thought you’d be out for a few more hours.”

“And I am willing to admit I was wrong.”
Hansel laughed as he reached for her hand. “I need to record these. Could you
try and refrain from knocking me on my ass for another minute?”

“You startled me. Last thing I
remembered is some man….” She looked at the two men. “He’s dead, isn’t he? You
killed him.”

“I didn’t kill anyone, love, but if you
mean the man who hit you, then yes, he’s dead. He’s been hurt when a drug deal
went the wrong way and he ended up being dragged behind a car through the
parking lot.” She looked at him oddly and decided that whatever was going on he’d
better explain later. “As for Jed? He’s on his way in. He had to…he needed to
get cleaned up before he could come back with Keith.”

“But that man—” His head shook very
quickly, and she closed her mouth. She was trying to figure it out when Jed
came in the door just as the doctor was going out. She leapt from the bed to
hold him. Not even the growls from Alistair could make her let him go.

“You’re all right then?” She ran her
hands over his shoulders and arms before he captured them and held them in his
one hand. She looked up at him. “I thought he’d killed you. He said he had.”

“I’m fine. Better than fine and will
live a great deal longer, love, if you would please stop marking me.” He took a
step back, and she felt the tears well in her eyes. Sometimes this cat thing
was a pain in the ass. She looked at Alistair.

“He was hurt. I needed to make sure he
was all right. I didn’t want to cause a huge fight.” He pulled her into his
arms, and she sobbed against his chest while he held her. She heard the door open
and close, and figured everyone had left the big baby to cry. She looked up at
Alistair and saw that Jed was still in the room with them.

What I’m going to tell you very few will
ever know about. You’ll never be able to tell anyone what happened today. All
right?” She nodded and sat back down on the bed while Alistair started to pace
as he spoke. “When you called out to me I was in the courtroom. I couldn’t get
to you. Not in time. I left there as soon as you blanked out from me. Tell me
what you two remember.”

“He hit my head a few times and I was trying
to hang on.” He nodded at her. “He told me that he’d been there to kill me because
Lance’s mother had hired him. He even admitted that the murders at the mall had
been something he’d been responsible for as well. He said that it wasn’t his
fault. That the man who’d been sent to kill me had to go too far.” She looked
at Jed. “He was the man from the kitchen store, the one that left before we
did.”

“Yes. He followed us, I guess, and when
you went into the store to get your sunglasses, he jumped me. I don’t know what
he hit me with, but he knocked me out pretty easily. I think if he had hit a
human he would have killed him. But me being a super, well, he didn’t hit hard
enough.” Jed laughed as he continued. “He made a mistake by not shooting me
when he had the chance.”

She shivered and looked at Alistair. “But
you said it was a drug deal. And that the man had been dragged behind a car.
What happened to him? If it’s not the same man, we need to—”

“It was the same man that attacked you. And
he is dead. The police are telling that story so we don’t have to explain why
he’d been mauled to death by a large tiger. Shaller didn’t want to cause a
panic and have idiots out hunting for animals that don’t really exist.” She
frowned, not understanding.

“But you said you never made it to me.
You didn’t help me.” She tried to think. “But I saw you there. You flew at him
just as he was going to kill me. I saw you.”

“You saw a cat, honey, but it wasn’t me.”
She looked at him, then at Jed when he did. “Jed and you were the only two
tigers in the area when the man attacked you.”

It took her a few seconds for it to sink
in. “You shifted.” Jed nodded at her and flushed a deep red.

“I had to. I couldn’t…he was bent on
killing you.” She nodded and took his hand in hers. “I didn’t think I’d ever
have reason to shift again, and when I saw him put that gun to your head, I had
to do something. I…” He put his head down, and she watched as his big shoulders
shook as he cried.

Looking at Alistair, he nodded. She
pulled Jed into her arms. He cried as if his heart was broken, and she didn’t
know why. Then he lifted his head and looked at her, his eyes red, and his face
tearstained.

“You saved me, Ally. All this time…I’ve
not wanted to go on any more not like this. My cat had…I thought he’d left me,
and I was so depressed. Then you come along and bring me to life, make my cat
start to stir again. But I didn’t know you’d made him live.” He leaned his
forehead against hers. “I love you. I love you more than I ever did anyone before.
I can’t…I will never be able to repay you for all you’ve done for me.”

She held him for several more minutes
before he pulled away from her. He sat in the chair as Alistair told her what
had happened after the man had been dealt with. Alistair told them the reason
for the elaborate story.

“Jed isn’t being charged with anything. That’s
the reason for the story. There was no way that we could explain the death,
especially how he’d been…Jed made sure he’d never bother us again.”

“But Mrs. Isaac? What do we do about
her?” Alistair grinned, and she smiled back at him. “You have a plan.”

“I do. And as far as anyone is concerned
right now, you’re dead.”

~~~

“What do you mean, it’s over? Over how?”
Lance looked down the road as another car approached the phone booth where he
was. “Are you saying that she’s dead?”

“Yes. I heard it on the news about an
hour ago.” He had walked into town to get more food when he’d had the urge to
call his mother if only to hear her voice. She’d said his name and told him to
answer her right now. “It’s all over the news. Said she was accidently killed
during a drug buy gone badly. That makes it double the pay off right?”

It did but he still didn’t believe it.
He’d been sitting at the house for nearly four days and some punk killed her in
a drug buy. He leaned against the phone booth and tried to think what to do
now. He could collect.

“When can you come home? I can’t claim
the insurance because everything is in your name.” The way she’d said it made
him frown.
She
couldn’t collect the money? Why was she even trying?

“I have to make sure. There might be…it
might be a trap.” A huge one if it was but he’d heard of them before. “Let me
see what I can find out down here and I’ll get back to you. I don’t…I’m not
even sure how to get home right now. I’m broke.”

“You’ll come home now. I’ve been waiting
for this thing to pay off for months, and now that the money is ours, I want
it. I’ve got to…did you know that the bank is auctioning off all my lovely
things? Why did you let that happen to me?” She sobbed a little, and he knew he
had hurt her again. He’d heard it before. “You’re as bad as your father.”

“Mom, I…please don’t cry. I’m so sorry.
I really am. But I have no money here. Nothing. I had to steal the little I
have to call you.” He looked at the twenty-eight cents he had left after taking
a woman’s purse from her grocery cart an hour before. “In a very short time
they are going to disconnect us, and I’m not going to be able to call you back.”

“You have to get here. I need you. You’re—”
The line went dead. He sat down on the sidewalk and waited. He wondered if she’d
call him back and waited for ten minutes before he picked up his purchases and
started back to the house. Why he was going, he had no idea. If Allyson was
dead, he had no reason to stick around.

Lance was about an hour down the road
when he heard a car coming up behind him. He started to move into the dark
bushes but actually didn’t care. He watched it drive by him and noted that he’d
had a car like it at one time. A dark Mercedes that had leather heated seats
and everything else he’d wanted. Now he had a bag of sticks of meat and bottled
water, he’d not had a bath in five days, and he was pretty sure he had a
horrible case of poison ivy on his dick.

“Christ, how the mighty have fallen.” He
moved to where he’d been staying for several days. He’d gotten into the
property once but had been nearly eaten by a pack of giant wolves. Actually
they’d never seen him, but he’d seen them, all right, and got the fuck out as
soon as he could. They were the biggest fucking things he’d ever seen.

He thought about getting back in,
breaking into the house and seeing if she really was dead. He had no way to
take her he’d realized after a couple of days of being there and not even a gun
to kill her with. He wished, as he had for weeks now that he’d never seen or
heard of Allyson or her money, and especially not anything to do with insurance
scams.

Settling down he knew that he should
simply turn himself in and be done with it. But he couldn’t make himself do
that either. He wasn’t a bad person. He had only wanted what he felt had been
owed to him. And somehow he’d gotten lost along the way. He grinned when he thought
of the lengths he’d gone to when he’d wanted something and wondered why this
was any different. He sat up and looked at the gate that held him out.

They would have some kind of weapon in
there, right? They would have a knife or even a gun maybe to kill her. If
nothing else he’d bet he could find something from the garage. Poison or even a
rake or an axe. He could use an axe on her and it would be over with in no
time.

He eyed the gate again. All he had to do
was stand far enough away from the camera so that when he moved in behind a car
no one would see him. He’d been watching it for days now and knew that when
someone pulled up they spoke in the microphone. Then once granted permission,
he would move in. He could do that, slip in behind a car and into the gates to
the house. She’d be dead by nightfall if she wasn’t already.

He heard a car and tensed. He wasn’t in
place yet. Watching it slow, he knew that it was one of the ones that had been
coming and going for days now, and waited until it was beyond the gate before
he moved to the bushes. Someone always followed this car. He’d actually been
wondering why there was so much activity at this place. He was about to find
out.

He heard the car approach and waited,
moving back farther into the darkness as it slowed and moved into the position.
He had a tempting moment when he just opened the door and got into the vehicle
but realized that like most cars it would be locked and he’d give his position
away. As soon as the gate started to slide open he moved up to the front of the
car. And when it moved, he did as well.

Lance followed along the car for several
yards before he lost his footing and fell. He let himself roll for several feet,
knowing that whoever was driving would have been able to see him from the
rearview mirrors if he simply lay there. Looking down at his leg he realized he’d
cut it up pretty badly. But nothing he wasn’t able to walk on. As he limped
along the tree-lined drive, he started to feel like this was going to work.

He stopped after going around the
driveway’s bend. He had expected a large house but nothing on the scale this one
was. It was bigger than his by twice, and the land looked to be a great deal
bigger than his. As he moved closer he realized that not only was there the one
home here but there seemed to be a second, smaller home in the back. He
surmised it to be a maid’s home or the cooks.

“Christ, I should have made a friend of
him in college rather than turn my nose up at him.” He moved toward the large
eight bay garages and slipped into one of the open bays. He could only stare at
the cars that sat in the neat rows inside. And at the end of three of the bays were
motorcycles, one vintage, one newer, and one that looked like it cost as much
as his last car. He was moving toward it when he heard voices and moved to roll
under the closest car. He realized his mistake almost immediately. What if they
got into this car?

“I tell you I saw something. I think it
was someone coming in with Jed.” Lance closed his eyes and waited for them to
look under the car for him. “He looked like that prick that’s been in all the
papers. The one that they have the manhunt for.”

“Lance Isaac? You don’t think that guy
is that stupid, do you? I mean, why would he come here of all days? Her funeral
is today.” The voice sounded familiar, and he realized it was Alistair. “He
wouldn’t have the nerve to show up today, would he?”