Deadly Pursuit (15 page)

“Got it,” he said.

Lowering the phone, he stared at her and she knew this was it—the have-a-nice-life part of the proceedings—and her stomach plummeted with a lurch so sickening that she wondered if she’d vomit.

“They’re here.”

“Oh,” she said. “Okay.”

To her surprise, he didn’t seem so steely all of a sudden. She’d expected him to fling open the door, plant a foot on her butt and kick her outside, thrilled for her to be someone else’s responsibility now, but he didn’t.

Hesitating, he stared down at her and she edged closer and stared up at him, miserably aware that she’d never have another stolen moment with him and would probably never be alone with him again.

This was it and anything she didn’t say now would never get said.

You’ve infected me and I don’t know what to do about it.

Could you please reverse the spell you’ve put on me so I can live a normal life?

I could never forget you, even if I wanted to.

“Stay safe, okay?” she whispered.

His lips curled into a crooked line so heavy with irony that it could never be called a smile. “I always do.”

Neither of them moved.

Amara was dying to touch him again, would have sacrificed a limb just for the pleasure of cupping her hands on his hard cheeks the way she’d done when he’d been buried deep inside her and they’d watched
each other come, but she knew that he wouldn’t tolerate her touch now.

“I lied,” she told him. “I’ll never forget you.”

“You should. It’s for the best.”

Turning, he slung their bags over his shoulder and reached to unlock the bolt on the door, and it was this loss of his attention that spurred her into action. Screw it. She needed to know and in another thirty seconds the chance would be gone forever. They couldn’t leave it like this.

“Jack.”

Taking a huge emotional risk, she put a hand on his arm and squeezed.

He froze, his head bent low, and didn’t look at her. Beneath her fingers she felt the iron flex of his muscles as they stretched tighter and tighter.

“This thing with us. It was … it was something, wasn’t it? It could have been something … couldn’t it?”

There it was. She, Amara Clarke, queen of emotional distance, put her heart on the line and he, bastard that he was, didn’t answer. Didn’t even
look
at her.

“Please,” she said, because, hey, if you were going for complete humiliation, why not go big? “Please, Jack.”

He stared at the floor and shook his head.

Rage flooded her. Rage and sudden embarrassing tears that she would not—would never—let him see. Why was she even bothering to be upset? Wasn’t this the one unchangeable constant she’d experienced since birth?

It was the story of her sorry existence: people left her the first chance they got.

Sorry, Amara, buh-bye. Try to have a nice life now, you hear?

Snarling, she tightened her grip on his forearm, hoping to make him bleed, to mark his skin and leave a permanent reminder that Amara Clarke had once been in his life.

“You son of a bitch, you can leave me with that much.”

He looked at her then and, oh, God, she had to let go of his arm and cover her heart because she wasn’t ready for the glittering agony and quiet desperation in his brown eyes. It was an abyss, a bottomless hole of black emptiness that made her pain look like a walk down the beach on the brightest, clearest day of summer.

“I can’t leave you with anything,” he said.

Amara was still reeling with shock and disbelief when he drew his weapon and peered through the ugly curtains. And then, when he decided it was safe, he opened the door, letting in a blast of icy-wet air and a figure so dark and silent he might have been a phantom.

“Parker, you punk, dragging me out here in the middle of the night,” said the man by way of greeting.

Parker, Amara thought. Jack’s last name was
Parker.

“Good to see you, too, Mateo,” Jack replied. “Did that rash ever clear up?”

“I didn’t say it was good to see you. And your sister gave me another rash, but I had fun getting it.”

They glared at each other.

And then, by some silent and invisible signal, they reached out and pulled each other into one of those back-slapping male hugs that looked more like a punishment than a sign of affection.

Mateo was fully suited up for a raid, Amara saw,
which meant that he wore the full DEA fearsome warrior ensemble: dark knit cap, dark DEA jacket, bulletproof vest, gloves, boots and gun. It was like the room had been invaded by an occupying army of one. Lucky thing this was a good guy. Amara sure wouldn’t want to be on his bad side.

“Who’s this?” Mateo asked.

“This is Amara Clarke,” Jack said. “She’s with me. Amara, this is Mateo Garciaparra, a sorry specimen from the Seattle office. We trained together back in the day.”

Mateo shot Jack an indecipherable look and then focused all his energy on Amara, who locked her knees lest they start shaking. Mateo was, in his own way, almost as tall, dark and handsome as Jack. He had sleek raven’s-wing-black curls that were long and unruly beneath his cap and skimmed the back of his turtleneck sweater, olive skin and cheekbones carved to such masculine perfection as to leave no doubt about the existence of God. His slashing brows and flashing eyes, sharp with intelligence, were black as midnight in hell, and his lush red lips were straight-line pissed.

“Oh. She’s with you. Has she got a note from the pope vouching for her?”

“She’s got
me
vouching for her,” Jack told him with a darkening-cloud face that warned of Armageddon unleashed if Mateo didn’t shut the hell up ASAP.

“How do you know she’s not the cause of all your problems?” Mateo wondered, checking his weapon. “I’m thinking this one’s got you doing most of your ruminating below the waistband.”

Amara opened her mouth to blast him but, at a
narrow-eyed warning look from Jack, snapped it shut again.

“If Amara wanted me dead,” Jack said, “she could have managed it by now.”

“Maybe she’s not that bright.”

Yeah. Okay. Calling her a Mata Hari was one thing; calling her dumb was unforgivable. “Listen, jackass—” she began.

Mateo inflated with irritation until he looked even more fearsome than before, but if he was going to dismember her he was damn well going to get a piece of her mind first.

“I’m plenty bright enough to take down your friend
Jackson Parker from Cincinnati
here—”

Mateo shot Jack a
you dumb fuck
look; Jack grimaced.

“—if I wanted to. And if you keep talking about me like I’m invisible, I’m going to reach down your throat and pull your tongue out by the roots.”

The men gaped at her and their mutual silence went a long way toward soothing her bruised feelings.

Mateo recovered first. “I think I’m in love,” he told Jack. “I’m going to fight you for her when we get out of here.”

Jack snatched her to his side and flipped out the overhead light. “Just get us out of here. That’s all you need to worry about.”

Checking their weapons again, the men opened the door and headed out, sandwiching her in between.

The street beyond the motel’s grounds was damp and deserted, a ghost town of hulking businesses and a gas station or two shut down for the night. The only sign of life was the quiet purr of an SUV engine as it idled several feet away, perpendicular to the row of
parked cars outside their room, and the quiet swoosh of another dark figure, a smaller one this time, as it approached.

Oh, God.

The danger was real, and it was back in all its nightmarish glory. Being curled around Jack with him deep inside her—that was the moment out of time. This was the reality.

Her adrenaline spiked, heightening her awareness of the cold … the silence … that faint prickling feeling of being watched by unseen eyes. She clutched her purse, prepared to duck, run or hide, whatever they told her to do.

They hustled her to the SUV and met the new figure at the trunk.

Oh, wow. It was a woman.

Blond underneath the baseball cap, with a wry smile and a gun as big as the men’s. “Nice,” she told Jack. “I can see why you want to keep her safe.”

Jack snorted. “Amara, this is Daisy Reed, one of the DEA’s finest, believe it or not. She’s here to save our asses.”

“Thanks for, ah, saving my ass,” Amara told her.

“Don’t mention it.” Daisy, all business now, hurried around to the trunk and swung it open. “Let’s get these bags—”

But Amara wasn’t paying attention because something funny was going on with Jack’s forehead as he stooped to help Daisy.

He had a bright red dot right between his eyes.

At first Amara thought some weird trick of the neon motel sign was reflecting off the dried blood on his cut, creating a strange effect, but then her brain, already bewildered and overwrought from the night’s
events, came up to speed with a burst of horrified clarity:

There was a bead on Jack’s forehead.

Bead. Rifle. Sniper.

“Jack,” she screamed.

Jack’s head whipped around and his wide eyes reflected his alarm, but that bead was still there. Daisy had seen it, too, and was already in motion, moving with an Olympic sprinter’s reflexes and taking a running step and then a flying lunge for Jack.

“Parker!
Get down
.”

Amara got there first, shoving Jack out of the way with an almighty burst of strength.

“Amara,”
roared Jack, and then there was the unmistakable crack of gunfire.

Crack. Crack-crack.

Jack dropped and rolled, then came up again with his weapon ready and his mind focused on one crucial thing:
Protect Amara no matter what.

Mateo shouted.

More armed agents jumped out of the SUV, fanning out across the parking lot.

Then came another
crack,
a sickening fleshy
pop,
and a shower of warm rain that Jack knew wasn’t rain at all.

Sudden, screaming terror stopped his heart. No. Jesus, no. Not Amara.

Afraid to look, to know, he prayed to a God he’d stopped believing in years ago and fell back on his training to assess the situation.

There was her shoe, stretched out in front of her, with the toe pointing to the sky.

Horror expanded in his throat, locking down the yell that wanted to rise up out of his mouth and continue for the rest of his life.

No, no, no.

Moving forward with only his fear to propel him, he saw her sprawled legs, one bent, and realized that she was moving. Moaning. He looked up the length of her body and saw her chest heave, her head move.

“Jack,” she said weakly.

Thank you, God.

Galvanized and acutely aware of more shouts and
cracks,
he kept one eye on his surroundings as he squatted beside her on the concrete, grateful for the negligible but better-than-nothing cover of the SUV.

Was … was the side of her sweater wet? It looked wet, but it couldn’t—

He checked again, holding his breath. Yeah. Blood.

“Fuck,” he said.

Fuck, FUCK—oh, shit. She was looking at him, focusing on his face and trying to blink away her stunned confusion.
Don’t scare her, Parker. Don’t make this worse for her.

“Hey.” He tried to smile.

She spoke in a voice so faint it scared him all over again. “I think I’m shot.”

“I think you’re right. Let’s see.”

Being as gentle as he possibly could, he rolled her to one side just enough to inch up her sweater and discover a clean exit hole through her back, down near her waistband. It didn’t look like the bullet had gone through a kidney or anything, but who the hell knew? Everything he knew about gunshot wounds came from watching
ER.

Keep it calm, man. Low key.
“It’s not that bad, Bunny. We’ll get you patched up.”

She didn’t look reassured. She looked fretful and sweaty. “Where’s Daisy?”

Yeah. Daisy. About that.

This whole time he’d been aware of another set of legs stretched out on the concrete nearby. He’d seen the creeping black stain in the periphery but he’d blocked it because his fried brain could only take one heart-stopping crisis at a time.

But the time for procrastinating was over.

Amara levered herself up on her elbows, and they saw Daisy at the same time:

She’d been reduced to a body, spread-eagled and obscene, with bloody pulp for a head.

There he was.

Kira Gregory saw Supervisor Dexter Brady of the DEA the minute she came through the vestibule and into the red and white over-the-top cheerfulness of the T.G.I. Friday’s restaurant nearest campus.

It was late morning, and the not-quite-lunchtime crowd provided enough chatter to cover up the forthcoming conversation. The chirpy hostess walked her up the steps past the bar, giving Kira a quick glance of Brady, who was sitting alone in a booth and had his skull-trimmed head bent low over the thick menu. Though she’d been prepared not to make eye contact with him, it didn’t matter because he idly flipped a page as she passed, yawning as though he hoped to crack his jaw clear through to the base of his neck. On the table in front of him was a half-full glass of something that looked suspiciously like pink lemonade.

The hostess kept going and headed straight for one of the freestanding tables at the far side of the bar, but Kira stopped her.

“Excuse me.” She pointed over her shoulder to a booth. “Can I sit here?”

“Sure.”

Kira slid into the seat nearest Brady and sat so they were back to back.

“Your server will be right over to get your drink order,” the hostess said.

“Thanks.” Kira smiled and flipped her menu open as the hostess left.

“You’re late, Mrs. Gregory,” murmured Brady.

Irritation combined with the excessive tension she was already feeling and made a disquieting cocktail. Big deal, right? Everyone called her Mrs. Gregory. It was a sign of respect for the drug lord’s wife, the same way people called Diana Ross
Miss Ross.

Except that she hated her married name, her marriage and, most of all, her husband. So she could do without the constant reminder of her status, especially when it came from that low voice that infused each syllable with a Richard Pryor concert’s worth of sarcasm.