When a Man Loves a Weapon (27 page)

Trevor moved her to stand in front of him, his arms enveloping her for support.

There, on the screen: Sean. Smiling, God help her, at the camera, with his unique barbed-wire scar tilted up at the lens, and the smile somehow mitigated how freaking scary he looked. He was almost
charming
. And his charisma would have worked, too, at least on some level, if he’d been the only person in the frame. But he wasn’t.

Nina was behind him. Tied to a chair, clearly having been slammed around a bit, head slumped forward. Unconscious.

Bobbie Faye shook. Fury. Unfuckingmitigated fury.

“Welcome to the game, Cormier,” Sean said, leaning a little into the camera. It was crap quality, something cheap and grainy, blown up big onto the screen. “I want the girl. And you’ll give her to me, with a big fuckin’ bow, or you’ll be responsible for the bombs. There’s more than one, and you can’t stop them, though if you give her to me now, I might give you the way to stop the biggest.

“An’ it doesn’t matter, your bank account. You don’t fuckin’ have enough, not even with the thirty-or-so million, to pay me off. You can’t guard everyone she loves forever. Besides, you fuck, your thirty million would barely scratch what I’d have made before, and what I’ll make again. You’ll give me the girl, or you’ll be the death of many more.

“I’ll call you wit’ instructions, me lad. That’ll be all.”

He said that last bit to whoever had been holding the camera, and there was a heartbeat where he was frozen onscreen and then the picture went to black.

She didn’t know what to focus on first. There were parts of her brain flinging themselves around like drunk kittens, battering the inside of her skull with exclamations of “Processing! Processing!”

Trevor had not moved a muscle as the video played, and she broke away from him, needing a moment, needing to try to pull oxygen in, and push it out again, because her entire system wanted to shut down from the shock of Sean’s video.

“Thirty fucking million?” Cam asked. He wasn’t looking at Trevor, he was looking at her, to see if she’d known. His grim nod a half-second later told her he knew the truth: that Trevor had not told her about his wealth. She felt her entire world shatter and fall away. It was dizzying, how fast the sound rushed out of the room.

Two thoughts collided and battered her chest, a hurricane of relationship debris thrown against her heart:
Nina’s a hostage
and
Trevor did not trust me with something monumental
. She couldn’t even begin to articulate the betrayal eating away at her, acid in her soul.

“We need to focus on how compromising this is,” ASAC Brennan said, and she gaped at the man in his pristine suit.

Compromising
. What a fucking way to put it. He said the word with about as much emotion as he would’ve given to a canceled breakfast appointment. “That’s my best friend,” she pointed out. “I’d say we’re pretty fucking compromised.”

But there was something going on around her, some odd awareness buzzed in the air with some of the agents and SWAT and staff seeming just as puzzled over ASAC Brennan’s choice of the word
compromised
. Trevor, on the other hand, did not look confused.

“We can’t know for sure,” Trevor finally said to the ASAC. “There’s no way to know. He may have just grabbed her because she’s Bobbie Faye’s best friend.”

“If he knows about her—” the ASAC began, then glanced at her and broke off the comment. Brennan turned to one of the staff and said, “We have the secure line up?”

We can’t know
what
for sure?
What the
hell?

She faced Trevor and saw his imitation of granite had taken on a whole new level. The little tic in the muscle of his jaw worked overtime, driven, she could see, by a deep, unadulterated rage.

“What do you mean, we don’t
know for sure
? What . . .” and she was just going to have to blow right by the notion of Trevor having thirty million like a freight train, because if she stopped to think about it? She’d spin completely off the planet . . . “
else
aren’t you telling me?”

And he looked like he was deciding something, fucking
deciding
how much he could tell her when that was her best friend sitting there in that monster’s hands, with threats of bombs hanging over their heads, with the only real leverage being that Sean wanted her—wanted her for revenge against Trevor, wanted to make them all suffer—and that’s when ASAC Brennan was apparently connected to someone on that fucking secure line.

“Agent down,” the man said to someone on the other end of that line and Bobbie Faye whiplashed around to Brennan and then back to Trevor again.

“Agent? Down? Who?”

Trevor got a nod from ASAC Brennan and nodded toward Nina’s image that Riles replayed on the screen.

“When the hell did I step into the Alternate Fuck With Bobbie Faye Universe? Nina’s an
agent
?”

“Not ours,” Trevor said. “She’s contract . . . to another agency. Has been since college.”

Bobbie Faye glared around the room and Cam held up his hands in the classic
not me
way. “I always tell you the truth, baby,” he said in an implied
I told you he couldn’t be trusted
way. She could feel Trevor itching to step closer to Cam, the better to wring Cam’s neck.

Riles didn’t appear to be the least bit surprised, either, that Nina was an agent. Of course, Riles was the kind of guy
that Satan probably had on speed dial, so he was probably good at disguising any human qualities like
surprise
. He stared at the video, now moving in slow motion without the sound. No doubt searching for clues as to their whereabouts.

“She’s extremely high clearance,” Trevor said, finally, when he focused back on her. “She has been for many years. You could not be told.”

She reeled. The whole world tilted on its axis, bells clanging in her head. This could not be happening. She didn’t believe it. It just could not be happening. Nina was her best friend in the world, except now for Trevor, but she and Nina had been inseparable growing up. After they went to college, Nina had gotten all cloak-and-dagger with the S&M stuff, but Bobbie Faye figured it was a lifestyle . . . oh, holy
fuck
.

“The S&M thing. It’s a cover?”

Trevor nodded and she spun back to the video, paying closer attention to the rerun. She felt as if she’d seen something important the first time through, but had been so shocked at Sean’s voice, at the image of Nina behind him, tied to a chair, she’d missed it.

Riles paused the DVD and Bobbie Faye started to protest, when he asked, “Does Nina know ASL?”

“Sign language? How the hell do I know? For all I know she quacks like a duck and levitates every other Thursday!”

Riles pushed
PLAY
and they watched the video advance. The camera angle barely gave them a glimpse of Nina’s right arm, but the way she was leaning to the left with her head slumped exposed her right side. Her right hand’s movements were so agonizingly slow, they almost seemed accidental. But there it was, unmistakable: Nina was using ASL spelling to sign something. Two letters were hidden as she turned her hand slightly to make them, but Bobbie Faye caught three: G D A.

Gilda. Her assistant. Bobbie Faye had talked to Gilda several times when Nina had been “tied up” at work.

“How fast can you get me to Baton Rouge?” she asked Trevor. She felt ice-cold, detached from him, and she recognized
it as a rage so poisonous, she should come with a warning level.

“Fast. Why?” But before she could explain, Trevor saw Nina’s movements. Knew, apparently, who that meant and where to go. He did not need her to explain who Gilda was. There were apparently worlds hidden in Trevor’s silence, worlds he didn’t feel necessary to disclose to someone as inconsequential as his own fiancée.

How could she ever fucking believe another word he said?

“Let’s go,” he said, and grabbed her hand.

She wanted to pull away. She wanted to walk out of that room without touching him.

And he knew it.

And he held onto her anyway.

The
sonofabitch
.

“Do you ever think that sometimes Bobbie Faye looks at her calendar and thinks, ‘Wednesday—laundry, Thursday—dishes, Friday—destroy the state’?”

“Every. Single. Day. Of. My. Life.”

—Deputy Lois Baron to Sheriff Linda Elliot

Everything Lonan had worked to arrange was spinning out of control. Just like that. The scapegoat for the bombs? Gone. Lonan had specifically chosen to help the mechanic with his plans to martyr himself with the bombs because once he was dead, the FBI, ATF, would all be satisfied that they had the culprit—and he and Sean and their men could slip out of the country, wealthy as fuck, without anyone the wiser. Sean would have had his revenge, they would have all made money on the futures they’d bought. It had been a perfect plan.

Now, everyone would know Sean and his men had set the bombs since Sean had gone the fuck ahead and announced it on his video. There’d be no crying bomber’s final words—and Lonan knew the mechanic had made a tape of his own—whining about his wife on national TV, no idiot going on and on about how she’d been a safety inspector, she’d tried to nail Poly-Ferosia for safety violations that would’ve saved lives, and she’d been killed, and no one cared, boo-fucking-hoo.

Lonan had spent two months setting it up. Spent considerable money. He’d found four bomb makers, and he’d chosen the one who’d draw national attention away from Sean’s group. They would get in, get the girl, torment the Fed, kill them, the bombs would blow, and they’d make a fortune—the perfect retribution for Aiden and Mollie and Robbie.

He’d thought bringing the best friend in would help lure the Sumrall woman into their trap. It was the only reason he’d gone along with it when he got to the boat and Dox had the friend. That—and he’d missed grabbing the Sumrall woman a second time. But now? Now Sean was going off plan. Off the fucking rails.

“Tell me we’re still goin’ t’ blow the bombs, Sean,” he said, standing up from the floor, wiping the blood from the corner of his mouth where Sean had backhanded him for objecting to the video.

“Oh, yeah, lad, we’ll still blow ’em. An’ the world will be watchin’ and the Fed won’t be able to do a fuckin’ thing abou’ it. I promised you—I promised you that you’d get to kill her family.” Sean gentled his voice, put a beefy hand to Lonan’s shoulder, and looked him eye-to-eye. “But I told ya that I aimed to keep the girl. Killin’ Cormier fast isn’t punishment enough. And he doesn’t much care for his own life, but he does care about her.”

Lonan felt his scalp crawl with apprehension. Sean wanted to
keep
the Sumrall woman when he got her. Lonan seethed. He’d heard Sean say it, sure, but he’d hoped Sean would come to his senses and realize that killing her was the best revenge against the Fed. But no, Sean was serious. He wanted to
keep
her.

“He’ll track us, Sean.”

Sean nodded toward Dox, who sat at the kitchen table cleaning his sniper rifle. “Dox’ll make sure he can’t. He’ll be in a wheelchair the rest of his life, lad. Knowin’ he’s got nothin’ she wants. Knowin’ he gave her up to me.”

Lonan gazed into Sean’s weird amber eyes. He knew the smart thing was to nod in agreement. It was at that moment that Lonan realized that Sean, in his madness, believed Bobbie Faye would end up choosing to stay with him, even with her family dead at his hands. He probably had even invented a way to lay the blame at the Fed’s feet.
Making the woman choose Sean over the Fed
was a challenge, a bona-fide, balls-down challenge, and Sean was
enjoying
it. Sean had always been attractive to women, particularly women who
liked to walk on the wild side. He’d always gotten whatever woman he’d wanted, even if it had meant busting up marriages, and Bobbie Faye had become the ultimate red flag to the bull.

“How are goin’ to pluck her out from under the Fed?” A heavily guarded, wealthy Fed, who’d stop at nothing to win. A man who was now forewarned.

“Oh, it’ll be a great bit of craic,” Sean said. “Since you lost her, lad, you’ll help get her back. Because she’s gonna ask to come wit’ me.”

She probably would—with her best friend sitting in the other room, tied to a chair. “Any exchange you set up, Sean, will bring the Feds raining down on our heads. You know they’ll be waitin’ for instructions—and as soon as you tell them where the exchange is, they’ll have snipers and herds of fucking cops everywhere.”

“Sure, they will. Which is why we’re goin’ to be the one place where they can’t touch us.”

Sean nodded toward the coffee table and there was the photo of the final bomb site and dread thrummed through Lonan.
No
.

“We’re blowin’ that one, Sean.”

“We are, at that.”

And that’s when Lonan knew that ever since they’d missed Bobbie Faye at the casino, Sean had begun making secondary plans.

Then he saw the notes beside the photo, saw exactly how Sean had improvised, and it was bloody brilliant. He picked up the notes and the photographs, measuring just exactly what he had to do to convince Sean he’d had a change of heart.

“It’s a fuckin’ t’ing of beauty, Sean,” he said, low, admiring it.

Sean clapped him on the shoulder. “Yeah, lad, Aiden would’ve loven it. And you’ll get your justice, I swear it.”

The mechanic paced in his workshop. Air squeezed in and out of his lungs and he knew his blood pressure had jumped.
His doctor would tell him to lie down and rest. Instead, he poured another Scotch—the good stuff Chloë had given him that last Christmas before he knew it was going to be their last—and he slammed it down. Good Scotch should never be slammed, it should be appreciated, but he didn’t think he had the capacity anymore.

He stopped at his computer desk and rechecked his equipment. None of the GPS systems were working. Or—they simply weren’t working
for him
. It didn’t make sense that all seven bombs could just disappear from his screen at the same time. The bombs were not synched up—one shouldn’t affect the other, even if there had been some sort of malfunction at the source. So, no, there had to be a malfunction in the tracking software, but he hesitated calling in his tech friend to track the error. Anyone else’s fingerprints on this deal, even the slightest involvement, would ruin them.