The Wolf, page 6
She imagined the husband was worried that the wife was sick to her stomach. Then Rio dubbed in the wife telling him she was fine, no, honestly, she was fine. He would ask if she had enough stuffing left in her to pick up the antibiotics/painkillers/antivirals/whatever at the twenty-four-hour pharmacy at that Hannaford’s on the way home. If she didn’t, he’d take her back first—
I’m fine, honey. Drive on.
Eventually, the station wagon eased forward, crossing the parking lot and hanging a left to hook up with the main road to the complex’s exit.
Rio stayed where she was, next to her car, until she couldn’t see their headlights anymore.
Then she closed her eyes—and, for no good reason, thought of the supplier from back in that alley. He was right. He had saved her life. Twice.
But they weren’t going for a third time.
For so many reasons.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Out far to the west of Caldwell, a farmhouse with a wraparound porch, a big maple in the side yard, and a family under its gabled roof was glowing with light and warmth and laughter. Inside, there was a son who had been found, and a sister who was sunshine at midnight… and a male and a female who were united in love. Though the tract of land was isolated, it was hardly lonely on the acreage. And inside, the pantries were full, and family pictures sat upon the mantel, and there was so much to look forward to and celebrate: Birthdays, festival nights, even regular things like a shared First Meal or a homemade dessert for Last Meal or a book well read, a game of gin rummy well played, a practical joke well dealt.
It was a good life. A great life, by all accounts.
And as the male of the family stepped out of the front door and took a deep breath of the rain-saturated air, he lied to the one he held closest in his heart as he propped the heavy weight open with his running shoe.
“Nah, not long,” the Jackal said. “Just maybe ten miles out and back. It’ll take me about two hours?”
Down by the kitchen, his shellan, Nyx, leaned around the doorjamb. “Sounds great. Just watch that ankle of yours.”
For a split second, his mate was all he could see, from her long, black hair to her familiar face, her flashing hazel eyes to her beautiful smile. In the space of no time at all, Nyx had become his world… Nyx and his son, Peter, and her sister and her grandfather.
They were his tethers. To the present, to the good parts of himself… to the decency he’d once had, and only recently rediscovered.
“I’ll do that,” he whispered, even though he couldn’t remember exactly what she’d told him to watch out for. “I love you.”
Nyx’s head tilted. And then she came down to him, all loose blue jeans and baggy shirt and devastatingly sexy. She had a damp dish towel in her hand because the farmhouse didn’t have a dishwasher. And actually, one of his favorite things to do was stand with her over the sink, working the sponge, and handing off to her everything he had cleaned. Or sometimes, she washed and he dried.
It was just simple stuff. But it was also the kind of thing that when he’d been in the prison camp, he’d given up on ever having.
As his female halted in front of him, something about the way she stared up into his eyes made him feel like she could read his mind. And he didn’t want her to see inside of him. Not tonight. Not right now.
“I’m glad you like to run,” she said. “And you can run as much as you want. I’m never going to stop you.”
With a subtle lift, she rose up onto her tiptoes. As their lips met, he shook his head.
“I’m just running,” he told her. “Really.”
Because he wished it were true. He wanted it to be true. And yet he knew he was lying to her.
But was he? If she knew anyway?
“I’m sorry,” he said softly.
“You have nothing to apologize for. Now go. Do what you have to. I’ll be here.”
The Jackal kissed his shellan again, and then he turned away and closed the door. The floorboards of the porch creaked as he went to the steps, and as soon as he was down on the ground, he fell into a jog. Then a quick running pace.
He didn’t track traveling across the dying grass or the moment when lawn got traded for pavement. But he knew how far away he was from his home as the first mile was passed.
Without consciously deciding to stop, he went statue in the middle of the county road. On either side, there was a whole lot of nothing-much up close, just brush that was now brown. Farther away, though, there were mountains rising from the valley floor like they were the lip edge of the bowl that kept the earth from spilling out into space.
He pictured the way the landscape looked during the warmer months.
From time to time, just because he could, he would come out of the farmhouse when it was safe to, after the sun had not just set but pulled its golden swath away with it, and he would enjoy the smell of the fresh air.
He supposed it would take until next year to find out whether that was the normal course of things. He hoped it was.
Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes.
A good minute and a half later, he was finally able to dematerialize.
When he re-formed, it was a couple of miles farther down the road, and into the landscape a good distance. As he focused on the scruffy ground, he couldn’t immediately find what he was looking for. He had to walk around in ever-widening circles until—
Yes, there it was.
If you hadn’t been searching for it, the hatch would have remained as camouflaged as it was, nothing but a sunken square in the earth marked by a bald spot in the otherwise unremarkable, spotty weeds.
But he was looking for it, and so here he was.
As the Jackal knelt down, both his knees cracked—evidence that he was sometimes truly running when he left the farmhouse. Most times.
Not all the time, though.
Whisking some of the sandy dirt away with his hand, he notched his fingers through an eye ring—and pulled the weighted panel open.
The dense stench that bloomed in his face took him back into Dhunhd: Dirt, mold, stale air… and the remnants of body odors that lingered even after the males and females were long gone. There was a ladder descending into darkness—and he turned around and lowered himself down a couple of steps, the toes of his running shoes penetrating out the back of the steps. Steadying himself, he reached up out of the hole and pulled the hatch back into place. As the darkness swallowed him whole, he had to open his mouth to breathe. There was just too much in his nose, down the back of his throat, deep in his mind—and a vicious anger blew him apart even as he stayed whole.
At least he thought he stayed whole.
Grabbing at the small of his back, he took his cell phone out of his waist pack and threw the flashlight on. The beam of icy light was nearly consumed by the void, a reminder that there was nothing so dark as the subterranean.
As soon as the Jackal hit the floor, he started walking through a tunnel that had been carved out of the dirt and reinforced by old, hand-cut beams. He had a thought that he should have brought a weapon—not that he thought there was anyone down there. The scents that weaved together were all old, nothing new.
It was not hard to find his way, even with the collapses that had occurred. A large part of the labyrinth was impassable, or too unstable to be safe, but not every part had been wasted—and he was careful.
He’d nearly died down here once before.
So he had no intention of actually fucking dying down here tonight.
A century underground. All for the deflowering of a young female of the glymera—that someone else had committed.
If Nyx hadn’t come along when she had…
He would still be down here.
Going deeper, the Jackal moved the beam around. Dirt walls. Dirt floors. Dirt ceilings reinforced with more of the wooden planks. But not all of it had been like this. There had been sections of the prison camp that had been finished, with heating and air-conditioning. And privacy. And guards.
Peter, his son, had been kept in a cell in that part. With books and a bed and a desk.
Peter, his son, had also been miraculously released by his mahmen. Who had controlled everything before she had been killed in a fitting way, a monster getting eaten by a monster.
“Why am I here?” the Jackal said out loud.
He didn’t answer himself. He wasn’t sure what he was seeking, and why did it matter anyway—
Stopping short, he wheeled around. And then a deep voice said through the darkness: “Don’t shoot.”
* * *
Rio opened the door to her dim apartment and hit the remote to shut off the security system at the same time. Stepping through, she let things close on their own and went down a short hallway, leaving the main light off. It wasn’t like the place was big or had a confusing layout: One bedroom, one bathroom, one closet-sized kitchen. With gray wall-to-wall carpeting and platinum-painted walls, she felt like she was living inside an old-fashioned aluminum tin, the kind your grandmother would have kept sugar or flour in on her Formica countertop.
It did the roof-over-her-head job well enough.
As she put her keys and her purse down on the two-top dining table, she realized she’d forgotten to remove her shoes. She always took them off on the mat just inside the door. It was how she changed identities.
Staring down at her black boots, she thought of where they’d gone since they’d been put on at about—what, eight? Eight-thirty? Naturally, as she considered the night’s events, an image of the supplier barged into her mind and refused to obey an eviction notice: It was from just after she’d been hit by the car, after the world had gone spin-cycle on her and she’d braced herself for a bad impact on the asphalt.
That drug dealer’s body had been her landing pad.
She could still picture the low-lidded speculation on his face as she’d looked over her shoulder to discover she was sitting on his hips… in a way that would have been sexual under any other circumstances, even though they were strangers.
Funny how bullets, fireballs, and dead bodies had a way of killing the mood.
Shaking her head, she measured the distance to her Welcome mat—and decided to keep going to her bedroom. The whole shedding her shoes routine wasn’t working anymore, anyway. Lately, she was on the streets even when she was here, no matter what the hell she had on her feet.
In the glow from the security lights in the parking lot, the messy sheets on her queen-sized bed were like frosting on a cake that had been slapped on by a baker who didn’t give a crap about their job. Likewise, the comforter was half on the floor from when she’d bolted out of bed at dinnertime. Of course she’d overslept. That was what happened when you didn’t crash until one in the afternoon after having gotten home from work at just before noon.
You’d think being undercover would get you out of paperwork, given how shhhhhh everything was. It didn’t. She had to file reports after every shift, listing with detail who she met, what the tenor and content of the conversations were like, and cross-referencing the intel with other ongoing investigations. But whatever. Part of the job.
Sitting down on the mattress, she let the backpack she’d double-strapped fall to the floor, and as it landed, she heard a chorus of little clapping sounds from inside the folds, as if there were a miniature audience in there and they were approving of her finally being safe behind a locked door.
It was the Motrin. Which she had yet to take. For a leg that she still didn’t know was broken or not.
Rio hadn’t made it into the ER. In the end, she’d stopped just in front of the facility’s revolving glass doors. Staring through them, into the bright light of the registration and waiting area, she’d just kept thinking about her conversation with Captain Carmichael.
She refused to give up. There had to be a way to stay on the case. A loophole. Some sort of persuasion she could throw out.
And so no, she wasn’t going to give her boss a medical reason to ground her. Besides, her leg was feeling better.
Okay, fine, it was numb. So she wasn’t exactly sure what it felt like.
Dropping her head into her hands, she cursed as she rubbed her eyes. When she re-straightened, she was staring at herself in the mirrored doors of the closet.
If the panels were slid back, they’d reveal her closet—and talk about coming up with a whole lot of nothing-much. All she had hanging in there was her funeral dress, her job-interview suit, and a bunch of parkas, fleeces, and other winter wear too bulky to hang on the hooks just inside the main door to the apartment.
Not really much of a wardrobe. Then again, she was one of those people who were just grateful to get the naughty bits covered, to hell with fashion.
“Time for a shower,” she told her reflection as she took off her leather jacket, her fleece, and her Kevlar vest.
When she didn’t move, it was hard to say who wasn’t listening to the bright idea. Herself… or herself.
As she stayed put and measured her reflection, she felt a chill and drew her Patagonia zip-up back on. Something about the warmth it brought made her wonder what that supplier had thought of her. Her dark hair was cut short, her face had no makeup on it, her dark eyes were… well, exhausted was one way to describe them. Bloodshot was another.
If she had to pick a third? She couldn’t come up with one that was even remotely complimentary.
Yup, she was a looker, all right. And she would’ve liked to say she didn’t recognize the hollow shell that just happened to be wearing clothes she knew she owned. Except she did. Maybe the captain was right and she needed a break, but that could come after she’d finally tied Mozart to the supplier and then—
The figure in black jumped up from behind the far side of the bed and came at her so fast, it was clear whoever it was was a professional. Right before she was hit on the back of the head, she had a brief impression of a balaclava covering the face—and then a blow to the base of her skull rendered her senseless and she slumped to the carpet.
Gasping, straining against an abrupt paralysis, Rio’s self-protective instinct roared—but there was too much traffic along her neuropathways, the signals for her hand to go into her jacket for her gun, for her legs to kick, for her to fight back in some way, do—anything, really… getting mired in a jam of adrenaline and pain.
The man came around and stared down at her. She expected him to say something, like a movie villain would, but he didn’t. He was like an anesthesiologist trying to assess whether a surgical patient needed another shot of the propofol.
He took one of her ankles. And then the other.
Now he was pulling her, her hands staying put as the rest of her body started moving—until the slack in her bent arms was used up and then everything was along for the ride and being dragged across the carpet, away from the bed. When he got out to the living area, he dropped his hold and patted her down under the arms and along the legs. One by one, he removed her gun, her knife, her cell phone, and her Mace. Then he stood over her again.
A series of electronic taps suggested the man was texting something. And then there was the swoop! of an iMessage going through.
Oddly, the nice-and-normal sounds calmed her. For absolutely no good reason.
There was a brief lull. Then a bing! as a response came through.
More pulling now. Toward the sliding doors.
It was then that she noticed there was no light shining through the plate glass panes. He’d obviously killed the security fixtures by the building’s side entrance, the ones that gave a perennial glow to this part of the apartment.
She hadn’t noticed exactly how dark it had been when she’d come in.
The man let her ankles go again, and used gloved hands to pull back one half of the door. The air that rushed in was wet and cold from the storms, and revived her a little.
As did the reality that he was about to remove her to his domain, wherever that was. He no doubt had an associate standing right below the balcony of her tiny terrace, the two-story drop not far at all.
Scream, Rio told herself. Just open up your mouth and bring the house down.
But she didn’t. Instead of making noise, she waited until the man had to get close to her torso to pick her up. Dead weight was a problem, no matter how strong you were, and as the man grunted and hauled her up off the carpet—
She used the last of her strength to shove her hand around to the small of her back, and the small holster that was on the rear of her belt.
Three. Two. One—
With a fast jerk that made every bone in her body hurt, she whipped out her Taser and caught the bastard right in the side of the neck. As he let out a bark and then strained too hard to make much noise, he let go of her—and she took the weapon with her.
While he stumbled, she rolled onto her side, yanked up his pant leg, and nailed him again, this time in the calf.
Her attacker fell like a tree in the forest, the impact of his body on the floor the kind of thing her neighbors down below would have heard right away—if she’d had any. Her apartment was located over the building’s rental office, and there was no one there this late at night.
Rio shoved herself up and stumbled for the door, her forward motion good, her balance for crap. She banged off the corner of the couch hard enough to rattle her teeth, but she kept going, the Taser still in her palm, a distant, persistent crackle suggesting that her hand had tightened on its own to trigger the sparking—
She ran right into the second man just as he came in through her door. He had a hood up to mask his features—and he was armed with a gun that had a suppressor.
“Jesus,” he muttered, clearly annoyed. “You’re a pain in the ass.”
Boom!
Before she could respond, there was another burst of pain in her head. Rio’s last conscious thought was that he’d struck her with the butt of his gun on her temple.
After that, there was nothing.
