Loose Ends (23 page)

He dragged his mouth away from hers, then kissed her once more, hard and fast.

“Don’t forget me.” The words came out of nowhere, unexpected, just like her, but the instant they did, he knew he meant them. He’d forgotten everything and everyone—but he didn’t want her to forget him.

“Police!” The shout came from the street, and he turned and ran, a lightning-quick slip into the shadows, more speed than any local cop could understand, and he was gone.

But he could still smell her, even halfway down the alley, where he found the dirt track leading off between two lines of fencing. Even there in the darkness, two hundred feet away, her scent was with him.

J. T. Chronopolous had kissed her.

Jane was stunned, frozen in place up against the back-alley wall of the building two doors down from Mama Guadaloupe’s.

True, he didn’t know who he was, and he didn’t know who she was, but the kiss had been real, as real as the first time he’d kissed her, when things had gotten so out of hand. She’d been eighteen, not the twenty-two she’d told him, and he’d been a Special Ops soldier on the eve of his last mission.

It had been a wild night—steal a wallet, outrun the cops, get about half lost in the tunnels beneath the city, and make love with J. T. Chronopolous on his living room floor.

Yep. That was about right. That’s the way she remembered it, a wild, wild night …

The fire crackled and snapped in his big old fireplace, and Jane figured that’s what had awakened her. They’d eaten dinner sitting on the floor in his living room area with the city lights sparkling in the darkness through the windows on one side of them and the fire keeping them warm on another. The food had been good, the company better, and they’d both been thrumming with the night’s adventure—not much of one for him, she’d
learned as he’d talked about his work, sharing parts of some of the missions he’d been on and telling her about the places he’d been all over the world
.

Over the course of hours, the conversation had grown more and more intermittent, and now she realized she must have drifted off
.

He had fallen asleep, too. He’d told her he was a Special Ops soldier, combat trained, combat ready, which had done nothing to make her feel better
.

It must pay good, she figured, looking around at the wonderful place he lived in—and then she looked at him, sleeping on his side with a couch pillow under his head
.

She was hurting like crazy already, knowing he was leaving to go off soldiering somewhere in the morning. It was terrible, really it was. She’d gone and fallen in love with a guy who was supposed to have been an unattainable crush
.

So stupid to have done that
.

And he was too old for her. He’d made that clear
.

“
You’re not twenty-two,” he’d said while they’d eaten, and he’d said it in a way that had told her she wasn’t going to convince him otherwise
.

One kiss, she decided. That wouldn’t be such a bad thing, and if she was careful, and kissed him very carefully on the cheek while he was asleep, he might not even know she’d done it. He was snoring softly and looked to her like he was long gone, down for the count
.

Yes, she decided. She was going to do this. Another minute passed while she figured out her best approach
.

Situating herself closer to him, she leaned down and lightly pressed her lips to his cheek, and his arm came around her waist, slowly, easily, dragging her closer
.

“
Hey, babe,” he murmured, and then drifted off again, except this time she was wrapped in his arms
.

Not such a bad place to be
.

She wasn’t stupid, but she was safer than she’d ever
been in her whole life, lying there with him in this beautiful place with a warm fire and clean furniture and all the other hundreds of things she didn’t have in her life. She wanted more of it, who wouldn’t? But mostly she wanted more of
him.
She spent her life taking care of her crew, always, every day, the scrapes, the troubles, the feeding them—and here was this amazing man who didn’t need anybody to take care of him. He was the strongest person she’d ever met, and he’d been her crush, and she’d fallen in love
.

“
Hey, babe,” she whispered back, and kissed his lips, so lightly, but it made him smile, and then he was really kissing her, his arms coming around her more tightly, one of his hands sliding up between her legs
.

Making out, that’s what they were doing, with him still half asleep and her loving the taste and feel of him, the incredible strength of his arms, the way he was exploring her body with his hands. She got lost in it, and in the low light of the flickering flames, their clothes came off, piece by piece, a zipper here, a button there, every move meant to reveal more skin, make their bodies more accessible
.

The more naked they got, the more awake he became, his mouth moving all over her, getting her hot, then hotter, until his name was all she was thinking, and that she wanted more
.

Pressing her down onto the rug, he came up between her legs, his shaft hard and searching, his kiss consuming her, his hands so hot on her body, molding her to him
.

“
Jane,” he sighed her name and pushed into her, and he held himself there for a long moment, kissing her mouth, his body gently rocking
.

It was her first time, and it was wonderful, no pain, only need. She shifted her hips and he sank home, and she never wanted it to end—the sweet hard rhythm of
his lovemaking. When he found his release, she wrapped her legs around him and held him close, wanting everything he had to give
.

“
God, you are so beautiful … so beautiful,” he murmured. “We shouldn’t have done that, but I’m glad we did, so glad. I’ll take you with me.” And he’d fallen back asleep, still holding her close
.

The next time she’d woken up had been when he’d carried her into his bed. It had been early morning, and he’d been dressed all in camouflage, and there had been a couple of huge packs stacked by the door.

“I’ve got to go, babe,” he’d said. “Remember where we had lunch the other day, Mama Guadaloupe’s?”

She’d nodded.

“Mama and a crew will be here later to clean the apartment. Stay here until then, and they’ll take you home. If you need any help at all while I’m gone, any kind of help at all, call this number and ask for Christian Hawkins. He’ll take care of anything while I’m gone. Anything. God, I’m sorry, Jane. That shouldn’t have happened last night—and yet I can’t regret it.”

And then he’d left, and then she’d cried, and when Mama had showed up with her crew, she’d left Steele Street for the first time.

He’d been right about Christian Hawkins. Superman had come straight to her rescue the night she and Sandman had hit the wall.

She’d spent years wondering what might have been, if J. T. Chronopolous hadn’t died in Colombia—but she’d moved on, only to end up here, smack-dab in the middle of trouble.

For as far as she’d come from her beginnings, and all the changes she’d made, at heart she was still a street rat, and street rats had only one reaction to a bunch of cops bearing down on them.

Run
.

It was instinct, and she did it like a gazelle. Fear burned all the shakiness out of her and put wings on her feet. The alley was dark, and the farther she ran, the darker it got, until a pair of headlights and flashers beamed down its length behind her. She didn’t turn and look. She didn’t need to—the weight and momentum of the police car coming down the alley after her felt like a force field, tires rolling, engine running, lights flashing, and somebody squawking on the radio. Seconds, that’s all she had before they caught up to her.

Nearing the restaurant, she told herself not to look at the men collapsed in the doorway. She’d done a lot of damage there, and it made her feel a little sick. Her survival instincts prevailed, though, and she did look, to make sure neither of them lunged for her as she darted past—but what she saw made no sense.

They’d been moved.

It hit her in a flash, the whole scene.

King had been sitting back against the wall, anesthetized into oblivion by that needle full of something, and Rock had been sprawled across King’s legs, bleeding and twitching and very much alive.

But neither one of them was alive now. The slumped look of death was unmistakable, as unmistakable as the oddly contorted angles of their bodies.

Someone had snapped their necks, twisted their heads sideways, and broken their limbs, all of them. Arms and legs were sticking out all over, and one of King’s arms had been ripped clean off his body and was just lying there on the asphalt, a couple of feet away from the rest of him. She saw bone jutting through skin and blood pouring out everywhere. It was more than she could comprehend. Nothing about what she saw made sense.

Jesus, sweet Jesus
. She kept running, faster and faster,
a scream lodged in her throat, choking her.
Oh, my God
.

Away, away, away
 … every instinct she had told her to get away.
My God
. She was going to be sick.

She raced past the kitchen door, arms pumping, heart pounding, and ran even faster. Where was J.T.? Where had he gone? God, what had happened? Could he have done that to those two men? Stopped as he’d run by and mutilated them?

It didn’t make sense. If he’d wanted them dead, he could have done it before they’d left the doorway. He’d already had his knife at Rock’s throat.

Jesus, sweet Jesus
. The cops were going to lock her up and throw away the key. This wasn’t the first time she’d been in an alley with a dead man, and the Denver police were going to find that out in about two seconds flat once they ran her name.

But this was crazy … and she … she was doomed. She needed away faster, to get away faster.

A new burst of light hit her in the face, and she skidded to a stop, her heart in her throat.
Oh, damn, damn, damn
. Another cop car had turned into the other end of the alley and was picking up speed, coming at her full bore, flashing, rolling, and wailing.

Even if there was a way to the street, she wouldn’t take it. That’s where the other cops were piling in. And she couldn’t go back. The alley behind her was full of cops, and gore, and mind-numbing horror.

She squeezed her eyes shut for an instant and shook her head, as if she could rid herself of what she’d seen, and she stumbled.

My God
. Scrambling now, she looked for a way out. The other side of the alley was blocked by a high chain-link fence with strips of vinyl woven through the links. She couldn’t see past it, except to know that it was dark on the other side. A few trees poked above the top.
Maybe she could find some cover over there, but there was no way through it, and she knew she couldn’t climb over the fence fast enough to get away.

But she had to move, and she had to move now, before she was completely trapped between the two cars. They’d both hit their sirens, just to scare the crap out of her. It was overload. She was already terrorized. The noise and flashing lights and the undeniable impending doom racing straight at her from both directions rattled her down to her bones.

She gulped in a breath, her sides aching from her run. Panic was consuming her, getting ready to drag her under, when she saw it: a dark slash in the fence.

Without a thought, she ran like hell and dashed through the opening. The cop cars came screeching to a halt behind her. She could smell them, the burning rubber and exhaust. When the car doors opened, she put on another burst of speed, her feet pounding on a dirt track—running straight into the dark and gloom.

“What do you want first, Dylan, the good news, the bad news, or the worst news?”

“Good news,” Dylan said, manning the communication console in the Steele Street office and listening to Zach Prade come in over their secure radio frequency.

“The fifth-floor maid at the Kashmir Club hotel downtown would sell her own mother for fifty bucks,” Zach said.

“Sam Walls mentioned the Kashmir Club when we picked him up tonight.”

A short laugh came over the phone. “Yeah, I bet he did.”

“The bad news?” Dylan asked.

“A guy named Tyler Crutchfield arrived late this afternoon. He checked into their India Gate suite, which takes up about a fourth of the fifth floor and has a
master bedroom and three smaller bedrooms—smaller only in the sense that each bedroom comes in at just under three hundred square feet with two queen-size beds and a private bath. Crutchfield’s party filled the India Gate suite with only one bed left empty. Do you want me to do the math for you?”

“A six-man team.”

“Actually, Crutchfield’s a lawyer, so he’s useless for any mano a mano, and the guy in the master bedroom is older than dirt and has a reputation for hiring all his muscle.”

“Randolph Lancaster.”

“
Bueno,
” Zach said, nice work. “Must have been a helluva party you had with Sam Walls. Sorry I missed it.”

“It was pretty low-key, no food, no booze, though I did serve a couple of cocktails.”

Zach laughed again. “Sodium Pentothal?”

“Walls’s luck wasn’t running that good,” Dylan said. “Give me the worst news.”

“Lancaster isn’t CIA. We tracked him from the agency a few times, but he’s a lot bigger than spookville. He comes up all over the place, one of those guys in the shadows of places like the State Department and the Pentagon who wield way more power than the folks making the headlines. He’s slick, very smooth, nobody can lay a hand on him, but a few people here and there are starting to think somebody should, like the Justice Department and a few of the guys and girls over at my old stomping grounds.”

“I’m not sure he can be touched through the Justice Department.”

“Yeah, that seems to be a real concern down on the Farm, too. The guy makes Teflon look like Velcro. He’s a real slippery bastard.”