Kiss and Tell (29 page)

"I'll pay back the money when you bring the car and Duchess, okay?"
In small installments, in person
, Marnie thought.
That should take about fifty years or so.

He watched the helicopter's approach above them with a frown. "Don't worry about the money."

No, I'm worried about you, Jake Dolan
. "I pay my debts." She touched his arm. "Can I ask you something before I go?"

His gaze flickered briefly to her face. "What now?"

She felt like a complete idiot for asking. "If there's anything you like about me other than incredible sex, could you tell me before I go?"

"It's hard to get over the incredible sex part." Jake's mouth quirked. He touched her cheek and used a thumb to brush away the tear she refused to acknowledge. "I admire the hell out of you."

It was hardly the declaration she longed for. She looked at his face. His stern mouth, his strong jaw. His unrelenting eyes, so hooded, so carefully unrevealing.

"I wish..." she said softly, knowing she couldn't possibly be heard. The noise was deafening as the helicopter descended. Jake tugged at her hand. Leaves and debris swirled around them as, hunched over, they ran to meet it.

The pilot, bulky in a heavy jacket and wearing a belligerent expression on his red face, shouted over the sound of the rotors. "Money?" He rubbed his fingers together in the universal sign for cash.

Jake shouted back, "Papers?" He flicked the pages in an imaginary book.

The pilot tossed Jake his log. Jake did a quick glance at the man's logbook. She wondered what he would do if the records weren't satisfactory. Fly her into Sacramento himself?

She wished.

Jake threw the book back to the surly pilot, then indicated that Marnie should give the man one of the bundles in her pocket. She handed it over. The man did a quick count, his lips moving. The swirl of the blades above them made normal speech impossible. Probably a good thing, Marnie thought morosely. It wouldn't be hard to lip-read "good-bye." Her hair whipped around her head, stinging her cold cheeks, making her eyes water and her ears throb.

Jake motioned for Marnie to get into the helicopter. She knew she had to hurry. The bad guys must have heard the helicopter's approach and would be following their footprints.

Marnie framed his face with her hands, leaning into him, then wrapped her arms about his neck and held him as tightly as she could. Standing on her tippy-toes, she pressed herself against him from head to toe.
Oh, God, oh, God.
She couldn't
bear
leaving him. Their thick jackets made the embrace unsatisfactory and frustrating.

"Please be careful," she said against his scarred throat. "I...I don't want anything to happen to you." She knew he couldn't hear her. "I love you, Jake," she whispered achingly against his mouth. Then kissed him before he could set her aside.

His arms came around her, and he kissed her back. Hard, insistent. Meaningful.

Meaning what?
Marnie asked herself as Jake released her. In the next heartbeat he lifted her into the open door of the helicopter and pounded on the Plexiglas for the pilot to take off.

His dark hair blew wildly about his face. He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, "Her life is in your hands, pal." He held up a scrap of paper, torn, Marnie presumed, from the pilot's logbook, although she hadn't seen him do it. He looked terrifying in his black spy suit with strategically strapped weapons and that ferocious glare.

The pilot, looking nervous, saluted Jake and fiddled with something on the lit-up control panel in front of him. The helicopter lifted from the ground.

Tears sharp in her eyes, Marnie watched as, without a backward glance, Jake melted into the trees and disappeared from view.

*

Out of sight under cover of the trees, Jake watched as the rotors accelerated, the nose dipped and the chopper lifted. He could see Marnie looking small and lost, face pale, eyes wounded, inside the bubble.

He withdrew his weapon from the shoulder holster and covered the chopper while remaining discreetly hidden amongst the trees.

The 9 mm Browning felt good and solid in his hand. The automatic had been custom-made for him, had an excellent sight, and could be fired in rapid succession. The Walther PPK would stay in his ankle holster unless needed. Tucked into the small of his back was the Daewoo DP-51. He wasn't taking any chances. He'd come loaded for bear. And intended finding it.

Stalking tangos always sharpened his senses. In this case the enemy wasn't tangos. It made no difference. They were still the bad guys.

The controls on his adrenaline opened several notches. This time it was going to take a lot more self-control to concentrate. While not impossible, it was going to be annoyingly difficult to shut Marnie out of his mind.

"Other than the incredible sex," she'd said. Jake felt a reluctant grin tug at his mouth. Other than the incredible sex? Judas, the woman had an unflagging way of blindsiding him.

He braced his back against a broad tree trunk, propping his foot on the gnarled bark. He scanned the clearing for movement, then refocused on the chopper.

The blades spun faster as the small chopper rose in a small tornado of wet leaves and pine needles. For a few seconds he watched the red strobe flashes of the chopper's flying lights blinking. Then flicked the safety on the Browning, kept the gun in his hand, and turned to start walking back down the mountain.

This time he didn't bother trying to hide his presence. He wanted the bastards to know where he was. Sending Marnie away had put him in a damn bad mood.

A slither of apprehension shimmied up his spine. Jake paused, head cocked, as he tuned his senses to the forest around him. Nothing seemed out of place, nothing appeared out of the ordinary. A mini whirlwind kicked up a circle of dead leaves. The tree branches creaked and swayed. The scent of crisp air mingled with the unmistakable pungent smell of fuel.

He turned slightly, listening, as the chopper lifted above the trees, a hundred feet above his head.

He had a bad feeling. A very bad feeling.

The familiar
whop-whop-whop
of the chopper overhead sounded fine. Jake concentrated, separating the sounds beneath the noise of the rotors. The music of the forest, the rhythm of the river, the sibilant whisper of the breeze through the lacy pines.

Despite the normalcy of the sounds, his gut instinct warned him that something wasn't right.

He turned fully, heart already racing, ready to sprint up the hill and see if—

He looked up.

Just in time to hear the explosion and see the fireball in the sky as the chopper exploded in a burst of flame and blew to smithereens.

Chapter Fourteen

J
ake hadn't heard the launch. Judas Priest. Despite his superior hearing, he'd been so damned busy thinking. He hadn't even heard it.

The ball flared like the sun. Bits of metal rained down on treetops, setting small bursts of flame dancing in the pines even as he started running toward it.

"Marnie!"
Jake choked back the black terror that consumed him.
"Noooooooo!"

He sprinted between the trees, slid on the slippery needles, and jumped over rocks and fallen logs in his race uphill. Breath sawing, lungs heaving, he kept his eyes glued to the honor ahead as he ran. Huge chunks of flaming debris fell from the sky like the wrath of God and lay smoldering on the sodden earth.

"You sons-of-bitches, I'll kill you for—"

The breath was knocked out of him as he was tackled from behind. The other man was up and at him before his momentum was arrested by a low rock. Jake rolled, swept his left foot out, and brought his attacker down. Locked together, they plunged ten feet down the steep slope.

Teeth bared, Jake slugged him in the gut. The man retaliated. Sweat and blood flew like confetti in the chill air. Jake used every trick learned in back alleys and dockside bars. Fists, elbows, knees. The fight wasn't equal. The other man didn't have his years of experience, nor his training. Most of all, he didn't have Jake's fury, pain, or guilt.

Jake was bigger, stronger, and deadlier. Motivated, and in a hurry. This skirmish didn't make a dent in his internal turmoil. Nothing would keep him from finding Marnie.

Jake grabbed his would-be assassin by the throat and hauled him upright to deliver the coup de grâce, a quick, efficient uppercut to the jaw. His attacker flew back, struck a knobby tree trunk with a satisfying
thwack
, then slid to the ground.

Jake staggered to his feet, adrenaline surging, heart pounding, mind reeling.

"Dolan, wait!" The man struggled to push the headpiece off his face so Jake could ID him.

Jake stared incomprehensibly at Sam Plunkett, a man he'd worked with several times at T-FLAC over the years. He didn't know the man well, but he had a decent rep in the agency. They weren't friends by any stretch of the imagination, but he'd held a grudging respect for the younger man. Until now. The last time they'd seen each other was two weeks ago, at the inquiry over the midwestern fiasco.

"You son of a bitch." Jake grabbed Plunkett by the loose fold of fabric at his throat and hauled him to his feet. Then he threw a punch that spun the guy around and onto his ass. Hauling him up, Jake punched him again. Plunkett fell to the dirt and doubled over, nose bleeding profusely.

Jake pulled the Daewoo from its holster in the small of his back. "You fire the rocket?" he demanded.

Plunkett looked up, eyes wild. "No!"

"Then who's pulling your chain?" Jake kept the pistol exactly where it was – between the traitor's eyes. Plunkett started to rise. "Stay the hell where you are."

Jake was ripped in two: stay and get the info he so desperately wanted, or search for Marnie's ... his jaw clenched ... body. Wishing he were an optimist, Jake prayed. Maybe she wasn't dead. Maybe she was alive. If so, he had to find her.
Now
.

The rank smell of burning jet. A fuel filled the crisp mountain air. "Screw it," Jake said flatly as he stripped Plunkett of his weapons and tossed them into the brush. "I don't give a continental damn
what
you're doing here."

He lifted the business end of the gun a fraction of an inch. "I'll find out what's going on later."

"No, wait!" Plunkett unfolded his long legs and stood, hands in the air. "I'm one of the good guys, Dolan." His eyes darted nervously before coming back to Jake. "The others'll be here in less than two minutes. I'll talk fast."

"I'm not in the mood right now to chat." Jake withdrew a short length of clear plastic tucked beneath the harness of his shoulder holster. "Turn around. Don't even twitch, or so help me, I'll save myself the aggravation and waste you now."

Resigned, Plunkett lowered his arms and grimaced, one hand going to his midriff, where he rubbed at what looked like a small muddy footprint on the black fabric of his suit. He turned. Jake used the plastic handcuffs, pulling the end as tightly as possible.

"You're cutting off my circulation."

"Write a letter to Amnesty International." Jake prodded him in the back. "Move."

"There's no point in going to the wreckage," Plunkett said over his shoulder. "No one could've survived that."

Jake told him what he could do with himself anatomically. He should shoot the bastard. But a dozen unanswered questions buzzed in his head. He could kill him just as easily in five minutes as now.

"Keep moving," Jake shoved him in the shoulder.

The gruesome image of Marnie's body, charred beyond recognition, ripped out his heart. For the first time in his sixteen-year career, he felt emotion when confronting the bad guys. It boiled and churned in his gut like lava, and ran like a rat in a maze in his brain.

He wanted to rip out someone's heart while it was still beating. He wanted to wreak vengeance on a purely personal level. He craved a confrontation. Something violent. Something bloody. Something to the death.

Grimly Jake started up the steep incline to the crash site, pushing the younger man in front of him. He waited for the smell of death to reach them, borne on the stench of kerosene, listening as flames snapped in the clearing above them. His eyes stung. From the smoke. He pinched the bridge of his nose. Wind could be hell on a man's tear ducts.

He imagined a road not taken.

He allowed the pain to rip through him as he remembered the taste of her on his tongue. Her unique fragrance. The way her blue eyes often held a wicked glint, as if laughter hovered a second away from curving her sweet mouth.

Plunkett's steps lagged. "They'll be waiting up there for you to investigate."

"I'm looking forward to it."

Jake bent to pick up the Walther he'd dropped earlier, and checked it as he walked. The closer they got, the more profuse the smoke and the more powerful the reek of burnt fuel, burnt metal, and the sweet, nauseating stench of burnt flesh.

He swallowed bile. Dazed by the enormity of his despair, Jake stopped at the edge of the tree line. Black smoke and smoldering debris filled the small clearing. There were no large pieces of anything. Bright flames still licked at the edges of the scraps, soon to be smothered by the wet ground and inhospitable environment.

No one could have survived this.

There'd be nothing there but charred remains. He couldn't handle seeing them now.

His eyeballs felt scorched. The weight on his chest made breathing hard. He dragged in a lungful of toxic smoke.

"U.S. Army Red Eye?" he asked flatly, and Plunkett nodded. The same shoulder-fired, heat-seeking missile the U.S. of A. sold to anyone who had the price.

Jake ran his fingers through his hair and swallowed roughly, a lump the size of a barrel cactus lodged in his throat. What he felt was immaterial now. He dashed away the smoke-induced moisture in his eyes and let ice take over his organs. He'd done a piss-poor job of protecting the woman he...

He looked at Sam Plunkett, feeling savage, almost demented with the ripping rage and despair devouring him.