Off the Edge (The Associates) (34 page)

Rolly turned. He was addressing the group. “I know you’ve all seen the clips of my TZ leveling buildings, but I’ve fielded some questions on its ability to pinpoint a human target. And there seems to be some curiosity about what a laser actually does to human flesh. I could stand here and tell you that it heats a person up, instantly boiling the water in the cells and setting the clothes on fire. I could tell you that the skin bubbles and blackens within the first ten seconds. But why should you take my word for it?”

So there it was. He would be the demo. He eyed the weapon on the helipad.
“You’re mine,”
Macmillan breathed, curling up as if from the pain. Discreetly, he transferred his phone from his pocket to his sleeve. He put on his glasses, then fumbled his hands back to the bleeding wound.

His time was limited now. He thought about breaking away and sprinting to the weapon out of the blue, but he wouldn’t have enough time to play the password and answer the challenge question before they pulled him back. And then they’d know that’s what he wanted.

A crash. He looked up to see Laney running in the other direction. She’d kicked over a table. Providing a distraction. It was bad timing, but he had to take it. He rushed for the TZ, phone out, but a guard was on him too fast. He got his phone back into his pocket before he was hauled back to the space in front of the crowd.

“Put him out there in front where we can all see him,” Rolly said. “Further out. Rolly directed them to put him between the viewers and the weapon. For the demo.

More men were coming off the elevator. Word that the hunt was over had gotten out.

Laney was back in her seat, watching, horrified. Macmillan caught her eye and warmth rushed through his heart. They didn’t need words now.

A whir sounded behind him; it was the weapon powering up. The laser beam shot up from the ground like a white line into the belly of the thing. Rolly was punching something into a notebook. Macmillan needed to think fast.

A voice: “Wait.”

Thorne stood with the help of his cane, managing to look proud and tall, even injured. “I have unfinished business with this one,” he hissed in Macmillan’s direction, hobbling over. “I found them first and he’s the one who shot me in the foot.”

A lie. What the hell game was Thorne playing?

“He didn’t shoot you!” Laney cried. “That was me.”

Laney?

Thorne kept coming, gazing at him strangely. A deep scar bisected his cheekbone at an almost perfect forty-five degree angle. The scar had the crosshatched look of a scar gotten very young, stretched over time.

Whatever Thorne had in mind, it wouldn’t be good. But at least it was more time.

“You have two minutes,” Rolly said. “If you kill him or knock him unconscious, you’re the demo.”

Laney cried out and tried to get up, but she was shoved back down by a guard. “Move again and I’ll shoot your boyfriend now,” Rolly said.

“He’s already shot,” she said, crying.

Rolly said, “Clearly not enough.”

Thorne stood in front of him, blue eyes blazing. He punched Macmillan in the belly. Macmillan doubled over, seeing stars.

Thorne came near, standing completely undefended. It didn’t make sense—Thorne was an expert fighter. But an opening was an opening, and Macmillan took it, bringing the fight to the ground. Thorne cried out, as if he’d been hit, even though Macmillan hadn’t hit him.

Macmillan felt confused, hazy. Losing blood. They rolled.

Thorne was on top of him now, gazing down with that wild look of his, like he wanted to kiss Macmillan, or more likely, bite his face. Then he whispered, “It’s a nice day to die.”

The Associates’ all-clear code.

Macmillan stilled. Could Thorne be Association? He took the advantage to get on top of Thorne.

Thorne stared up, waiting. Was he waiting for Macmillan’s reply?

“Clears the mind,” Thorne whispered, offering the reply himself. “I know what you want. I’ll get you to the weapon.”

It would be just like Dax to have somebody in deep cover inside Hangman. To keep it from them.

Macmillan didn’t have much of a plan. He went with his gut. “Do it,” he whispered.

A blast of pain as Thorne flipped them over, doing a leg destruction that wouldn’t have hurt if he hadn’t been shot.

Thorne jumped up. Jubilant jeers rose up from the crowd. They all hated the Association.

Thorne pulled a gun from an ankle holster and raised it over his head, shooting up into the air. “I want to see the spy kiss the TZ before the laser kills him!” Again he shot into the air. “Crawl!” he yelled. “Crawl to the weapon and kiss it! Kiss and be killed!”

Macmillan almost wanted to laugh. Crawl to the weapon and kiss it. That would do.

The man really was crazy.

“Kiss and be killed!” Thorne shouted, shooting the rooftop this time, a little too close. A spray of stucco stung Macmillan’s cheek as he began to crawl.

Jeers and laughter rose into the night sky behind him; the whole place had the feel of a mob on the edge. Some of them shot up into the sky.

Thank you, Thorne.
Macmillan whispered. He would get close now. If only he could last. If only Laney could trust.

He collapsed when he reached the foot of the TZ.

“Kiss it! Kiss it!” the crowd chanted.

He activated the recording on his phone, hoping it worked over the din of voices. Out came Rolly’s voice:
My leetle friend.
The whir changed. A computer voice. “Salt. And…”

Macmillan whispered.
“Pepper.”
. Rolly’s voice emerged: “Pepper.”

Click click.

“Transfer voice command,” Macmillan said. He gave it a new password, following the steps Fedor had outlined.

Click click.
The weapon was his. He got up and kissed it. Cheers rose up. Macmillan turned to the crowd, the weapon at his back. He limped away, just to make it look good, then collapsed a few feet from it.

“You can limp,” Rolly called to him, notebook in hand, “but you can’t hide.” He stabbed at his keypad.

A hush fell over the rooftop. The crowd waited. And waited.

Nothing happened.

Rolly’s expression darkened—Macmillan could see that even from a distance. Rolly punched something into his notebook. He looked up, then back down. He hit a button and spoke at his notebook.

Dealers started to grumble. One of the New Tong got in Rolly’s face.

Macmillan caught Laney’s eye. He needed to get her out of there. He loved her. And she loved him.

Suddenly Rolly was back focused on him. He had his gun out. “What did you do?” He began to stalk toward Macmillan, murder in his eyes.

Macmillan had taken the weapon out of Rolly’s control, but he hadn’t thought much beyond it. This was it—Rolly would kill him. The man had nothing more to lose.

Macmillan pulled out his phone and dove behind the front wheel casing of one of the helicopters. He tapped the link Fedor had bookmarked as a bullet whizzed by.

“Sighting array,” he said, sliding his thumb across the screen until he had an image of Rolly on his phone, running at the weapon. The crosshairs appeared.

“Fire,” Macmillan boomed.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw three red beams come from the crown of the weapon and join into a bright, white line that connected instantly to Rolly’s chest. The force of the beam stopped his forward motion, and he emitted a horrible strangled cry. His gun skittered, his arms reddened, and his clothes burst into flames. He seemed almost to collapse and implode on the spot, skin popping, bubbling, and finally blackening as he crumpled to the ground.

Macmillan stood, holding his phone. The smell was horrific.

“Anyone else?” he asked.

The pandemonium in the audience was instantaneous and violent as dozens of dangerous arms dealers ran for the doors and elevators.

Good. Macmillan’s vision was going hazy now. He could make out Laney, running for him, arms still bound behind her back. She fell to her knees. “Peter.”

He held on to her and kissed her for all his life. “You’re okay,” he whispered, keeping an eye on the fights breaking out at the elevator banks. Most of the dealers were taking the stairs. But she was there. It’s all he needed.

She twisted and deposited a small serrated knife on the ground. “Free me. Tell me who to call.”

He sawed through the zip ties and freed her. She punched in the number he gave her, looking so free and strong, hair blowing in the night breeze. She was the last thing he saw before he blacked out.

Colorado

Laney was supposed to be collecting basil, but she couldn’t resist stretching out in the sun. She could see Peter through the open kitchen window, making tea in the chipped old tea pot they’d found at the antiques barn. They sometimes joked about it, their little cabin in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, all rustic and idyllic. The chipped teapot. Texting side-by-side in their favorite chairs. Their red mailbox with a creaky flag at the end of the winding lane. She threatened constantly to put their life in a cornpone song, and sometimes made up silly ones. They got a lot of joke mileage out of it. You got a lot of mileage out of things when you were crazy in love.

They’d spent that morning working at their kitchen table, her on her songs, and him on his big database project.

He wasn’t out in the field anymore with his shadowy cabal, as she called it—those days were over. But the voice and image database and diction recognition software he was working on would make a huge difference for his friends back in the field. It was the linguistics project of a lifetime, he always said, and he loved working on it so much, he sometimes forgot to eat. He really was just a word nerd when you came down to it. And so was she. She would work on her songs, and sometimes sing in the local coffeehouse.

Language was everything.

Yet not.

She missed Bangkok, and she missed the friends she’d made, though she didn’t miss the Shinsurins. The hotel had gotten shut down after the auction, and Dok and Jao were hauled off to jail. Rolly had killed Niwat. Rajini was by herself, running one of the other hotels. She’d written Laney a letter a month back, begging her forgiveness. Laney needed to think about that. It was a lot to forgive, what Rajini had done.

The door creaked open. Hedley, their old rescue dog, came bounding out first. She felt his nose on her toe.

Peter was taking a bit more time; he still needed to use a cane—for at least three more months, the doctors told him.

He’d nearly died.

She shaded her eyes with her hand and smiled when he reached her. He was like a glorious god up there, golden haired and happy. “What’dya think you’re doing?” she asked.

He adjusted his glasses. “I could ask you the same thing. I believe you had a mission out here.”

“I was looking at the sky,” she said.

“Oh, yeah?” He lowered himself to the ground and stretched out beside her. The sky was like a lazy bowl of delicious, delicious blue that was darker in the center. But he was so much more delicious. He turned onto his side. “I have something for you.” He handed her a bright paper package. A book. A big one.

“What is this?”

“A gift,” he said.

She smiled up at him and sat. “For what?”

“Open it.”

She ripped off the paper. There inside was an old dictionary. Beautiful raised letters, well worn, well loved. She knew what it was before he told her—the dictionary that had meant so much to him before the train bombing so many years ago.

“My mother’s,” he said. “I had a few things sent from storage. From before.”

She touched it reverently. Her own mother had been asking her when he’d put a ring on her finger, but this was bigger. So much bigger, so much more personal, more meaningful.

“Thank you.”

“I love you, you know,” he said.

She turned on her side and propped her head up on her elbow. “I love you, too.” She looked at the dictionary. This was why he’d latched onto the cookbook full of wishes song. This book was more than a dictionary. It was dreams. Goodness. The future. Family. Hope. Play.

“You think I’m going to sit around looking things up for you now?” she asked in a small voice, not wanting to ruin the moment with too much seriousness.

Peter was having none of it. “Always.”

“Always,” she whispered.

He kissed her lightly, warm lips over hers, letting the book slide into the clover. She pulled him nearer, messing up his hair, enjoying his warmth, his weight.

They both lay back after a spell, breathless, looking at the sky, which seemed almost to vibrate with blue.

She fumbled for his hand and found it.

~ THE END ~

I hope you enjoyed Off the Edge. This book is lending enabled, so feel free to share it with a friend. And if you enjoy writing reviews, I’d love it if you told other readers what you thought; when I notice somebody has left a review on my book somewhere, it’s like discovering a candy bar in my coat pocket! But most of all, thank you so, so much for reading.

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Book 3 of the Associates is coming out next. It’s the story of Thorne...and there might be a secret baby! Look for #4 and #5 to follow.

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Romantic Suspense