Over the Line (40 page)

He could just make out the outline of two figures huddled together beneath a snow-white comforter. And if he acted now, he'd be on a flight out of here in forty-five minutes.

He lifted the gun, mouthed a silent,
Adios, suckers,
and squeezed off six rounds without batting an eye.

His shoulder was still vibrating from the recoil and the acid scent of gunpowder permeated the air when he slipped a penlight out of his breast pocket. He walked to the bed and whipped back the covers.

"What the—"

"Drop the gun."

He whipped around, aimed the Glock toward the direction of the voice—and heard, more than felt, the report of the rifle that was pointed dead center at his chest.

The pain was a vague, nebulous sensation as he lifted his hand and felt the wet, gaping hole directly over his heart. The cold, however, was dramatic and intense as he felt his legs buckle and he crumpled to the floor.

The darkness, when it came, was cavernous and vast.

He was a dead man. After all he'd been. After all he'd done. He was a dead man.

And the bitch of it was, he hadn't even seen it coming.

It wasn't Grimm.
It wasn't Grimm.

Janey couldn't believe it. Could hardly believe the man who had been trying to kill her was dead—and that they were alive. If it hadn't been for Wilson's intuition and planning, they probably wouldn't be.

"Got a feelin'," he'd said shortly after he'd discovered the tracking device in her cross.

And then he'd told her what he planned to do.

"He's not going to strike in the daylight. If he'd planned to, he'd have done it today. He's going to come after us after dark—like the night viper he is."

He'd kept her calm through the rest of the afternoon. Made certain they were just visible enough, just long enough, that if anyone had been watching them, he'd never get a clear shot through the windows. Made sure he was always close beside her, always between her and a possible bullet.

The two hours they'd spent in the dark in the upstairs bedroom behind the door had felt like two decades.

"If you hear anything—anything at all," Baby Blue had whispered close to her ear, "tell me."

She'd understood then how concerned he was about his hearing loss. Turned out, he didn't have to worry. She'd actually dozed off—amazing—and he'd awakened her with a finger to her lips and a nod toward the door.

That was when she'd heard it. Above the frantic beat of her heart, she'd heard the faint sound of footsteps on the floor outside the bedroom door.

She'd heard the shots all right. Flinched and bit her lip to keep from crying out when the gunman had stood just inside the door they were hiding behind and, cold and calculating, killed the hell out of their pillows.

She shivered and snuggled closer to Baby Blue, who was on his cell phone filling Nolan in.

"No," he told Nolan again. "It wasn't Grimm. No. She's never seen this guy before. The detective on scene is going to fax a photo to Boston and Atlantic City and Tupelo. I've already called Rodman and told him he'd be hearing from you. He's agreed to fax you a copy."

She stared out the window as the last of the police cars and the hearse carrying the county ME and the shooter's body drove down the lane and out of sight. Nolan said something on the other end that she couldn't hear.

"Yeah. The receiver was on him. I'll be overnighting the transmitter to you in the morning so you can check it out.... Yeah, well, I thought you could do more with it than the local police. It'll be a big oops on my part if it comes to an obstruction charge, but since the guy is dead, I don't see the problem."

He hung up shortly after that.

"How you doing?" He cupped her shoulders in his hands and turned her to face him. The electricity was out, but she'd found several candles and busied herself lighting them all over the living area while he'd talked to the police.

"I don't know," she admitted. "I should feel relief. And I do ... to a degree."

"But all this time you've been expecting Grimm," he concluded accurately.

"You think... you think maybe this guy ... maybe he was the one who murdered my mother? And those women?"

"Yeah. That's what I'm thinking. Whether the police can ever tie him to any of those deaths ... that's a different matter."

She leaned into him when he pulled her against him, kissed the top of her head. "And where does that leave Grimm in the mix?"

He squeezed her harder. "Got me, babe. But we'll get there. We'll get to the bottom of all of this. In the meantime—"

"The worst is over," she said, and prayed to God she was right.

His cell phone rang. "Wilson," he said, after fishing it out of his hip pocket.

Lost in thought, she tuned out of the one-sided conversation until she realized he'd hung up. And that he'd become very quiet.

She pulled back. Looked up and into his face. His ashen face.

"Oh, God. What now?"

"It's Max. He's in the hospital. He's had a heart attack."

Monday evening, July 24th, CCU waiting area, Cedars-Sinai Hospital, Los Angeles

"Janey, you're not going to do him any good if you drop from exhaustion."

Jase was worried about her. He sat on a small vinyl sofa on Janey's left. Lakesha Jones sat on her right.

"He's right, Janey. You should go home. Or go to a hotel. Get some rest."

"I'm staying," she said stubbornly, and Lakesha rolled her eyes over Janey's head.

Janey hadn't even had time to process that a man who had tried to kill her was dead, that she could have died, and that Grimm was still alive.

And now she had to deal with Max's condition.

A condition that wasn't good.

He'd had a major heart attack around ten o'clock last night following dinner with a rep from the label. The only reason Max was still alive was because they hadn't yet left the restaurant when it had happened. The maitre d' had performed CPR.

Max Cogan was alive by the grace of God, it seemed. Once they'd stabilized him, they found five blocked arteries. All of which they'd fix—when and if he survived the heart attack.

If he made it through the first twenty-four hours, he might have a chance. Until then, it was heartbeat by heartbeat.

"Janey," Jase said again, and when she finally looked up at him, his heart broke.

Her face was swollen from crying. Her eyes windows of despair.

"I can't leave him. He... he might wake up. He'll need someone. Someone who cares about him."

Jase understood. Max was family. The only family she had now. And there was no way in hell she was going to let Jase pry her away from his side.

"Okay. Fine," he murmured with a gentleness that he hadn't known he had in him. "But you're going to eat something. And then you're going to sleep. The staff knows to wake you if he comes around."

"I'll run down to the cafeteria and get something for both of you," Lakesha offered.

Jase nodded his thanks and pulled Janey back against him, pushing her head down onto his shoulder as if he could will her to sleep.

"What about you?" She leaned back against him as another couple entered the waiting area, their eyes just as strained, their hearts just as heavy. There was only one reason anyone sat in this room done in subdued colors of blue, rose, and gray.

They were waiting for someone to live. Or waiting for someone to die.

"I'm fine. I'm a big, tough bodyguard type, remember?"

"Yeah," she said, and he finally felt her relax against him. "I remember."

They sat in silence for a long time. Neither of them had slept in over twenty-four hours. Jase knew she was running on fumes. His tank wasn't exactly full, either, but he'd trained for this in the Rangers. He was used to it. She wasn't. And she was almost asleep when a nurse came out. The shift had changed an hour ago, so Jase didn't recognize her.

"Is there anyone here for Max Cogan?"

Janey shot awake. Jase stood when she did. "We are," Janey said.

"Janey Perkins," Jase said, introducing her to the nurse. "I'm Jason Wilson."

"I'm Shelly. And I've got good news. He's awake," she said cheerily. "And he's asking for you."

Janey rushed toward the CCU door.

"I'm sorry." The nurse stopped her with a hand on her arm and a sympathetic look. "He's asking for Mr. Wilson."

Janey stopped, stricken. Hugged her arms around her ribs.

Jase squeezed her arm. Smiled in reassurance, although he was as puzzled as she was as to why Max had summoned him and not her.

"You'd better hurry," Shelly said. "He may not be awake and alert for long."

He was awake long enough, Jase thought with a grim set to his mouth when he left Max five minutes later. He'd been awake long enough to turn Janey's world upside down again.

Desperate. Max Cogan was desperate. And he'd made Jase the designated proxy to level the blow of just how desperate Max was.

As Jase walked back into the waiting room and saw the concerned, expectant look on her face, he only hoped she was strong enough to keep it from knocking her down.

"Gambling?" Janey looked stunned as she sat on her leather sofa, the dogs lying contentedly at her feet, the cat purring on her lap.

They'd returned to her Malibu beachhouse a couple of hours after Max had come clean to Jase.

"Max has a gambling problem?"

"Apparently a big one," Jase said, wondering how much more she could possibly take.

He handed her a bottle of water that he'd just pulled out of the fridge, thinking he was glad that he'd kept his mouth shut when No had called him in Iowa. Glad he'd withheld the info about Max and his gambling issues. It was hurting Janey bad enough to hear it now in the form of a confession from Max. It would have hurt more if Max hadn't been the one to spill the beans on himself.

Jase hadn't wanted to talk about Max's confession at the hospital. Not with Lakesha there. Not until he had Janey where she could have some privacy to absorb this latest twist. And until the doctor had come out later with the announcement that Max had made it past the critical hour and it looked like he was on track to recovery, Jase hadn't been able to budge her from the hospital.

"Why didn't I know this? How could I not have known?"

"Shame motivates. Max is ashamed of his habit. He hid it well because of that. He never intended for you to know."

"And he was making what he thought was a deathbed confession?"

"He was trying to save your life."

She blinked up at him.

He let out a deep breath and sat down on the arm of the sofa. She looked small and breakable and ruined as he related the story Max had told him. How he'd gotten in deep with a bookie by the name of Herb Meyers—how Herb turned out to be mob-connected and how Max had gotten into them for two hundred thousand dollars. And the hard part, how Max had planned to "borrow" the money from Janey and hope she never found out.

"Only Max had a change of heart," Jase told her, watching her face, wishing he could fix all the things that were so very wrong in her life. "In the end, he couldn't do it. He couldn't steal from you. So this Meyers guy came after him again—Max spotted him at the restaurant. That's what prompted the heart attack."