Assassin (22 page)

"Sorry," Case mumbled, and continued to stand where she was about a foot from the edge of the bed.

Rain rubbed her wrist and shrugged her shoulder to make sure it was okay.

"It's all right. I shouldn't have grabbed you like that. I just..." didn't want you to leave, Rain finished the thought silently.

"What?" Case asked.

Rain shook her head.

"Come on, what?" Case asked again, a little more impatiently, as she sat back down.

Rain racked her brain for a plausible response that would sidetrack Case without actually talking about anything that was really bothering her.

"How did you deal with it? Your first hit," Rain finally said.

Case relaxed a little and then nodded in understanding.

"I threw up. Then I worked out until I could barely walk and then I passed out. When I woke up the next morning, I just made myself not think about it."

Case didn't continue, but now Rain was curious.

"Have you ever fucked up on a job?"

Case was surprised at the question, but she nodded her head.

"Yeah, once."

Rain waited, but Case didn't say any more.

"What happened?" Rain finally asked.

Case looked around the room. Why was it that Rain always seemed to want to make her uncomfortable when she was the one that was freaking out about something?

"Things were supposed to be a certain way when I got there and they weren't. I handled it."

Rain snorted.

"Could you have been just a little more vague? I think I might have understood some of that."

Case rolled her eyes. She really didn't want to talk about this, but she had a feeling Rain wasn't going to let it go.

"All right. If I tell you what happened, will you go to sleep?"

Rain thought it over.

"You'll tell me the whole story?" Rain asked.

Case nodded her head.

Rain studied her, but finally nodded her head in return and used the remote to turn off the TV.

"Okay, tell me the story," Rain agreed, doing a good imitation of a five-year-old as she settled herself into the bed a little more comfortably.

"Promise," Case ordered.

"I promise to go to sleep if you tell me the story."

Case nodded her acceptance of the deal and then tried to figure out where to begin. It took her a moment, but then she simply started right in.

"There was this guy, named Tony Massucci, who decided to try to cut a deal with the Feds. Antonio found out and I got the call to take care of the problem. I had a week to figure out how to set up the hit and the only rule was no witnesses, so I could do it any way I wanted. I decided to take him out at his home, one bullet to the head. His wife was supposed to take their three kids to some concert they'd been planning to see for weeks, so I figured that would be the perfect time. Tony was always working and he almost never went out with them, so they hadn't even bought him a ticket. I'd cased the place, so I knew exactly where he'd be. I timed it so that I would get there half an hour after the family had left.

"I went in and everything was perfect. Massucci was right where I'd thought he'd be. He started begging right off and I told him to shut up, but he wouldn't. He just kept going on about his kids and how much he loved his wife. He even told me he could set up a deal for me, if I let him and his family live. I laughed at him. I was about to kill him for turning narc and he wanted me to put myself in the same position. I told him he was an idiot and then forced him onto his knees. He just kept begging me not to kill his family and that's when I realized what he meant."

Case remembered the dread that had flooded through her body and made her heart thud when she'd understood that the wife and kids were still in the house. She'd known instantly what she was going to have to do. She'd tried to tell herself that as long as they stayed upstairs, where Tony had said they were, she could leave without being seen and therefore leave no witnesses, but the more calculating part of her mind had known the truth.

"Massucci finally just started begging me to kill him, but to leave his family alone. I told him he should've thought of that before he went to the FBI. But then he kicked me and we started wrestling for the gun. It went off, but the silencer kept it from making too much noise. But we crashed into some stuff while we were fighting and I guess they heard it upstairs. They all came down to investigate. By the time they were in the doorway, I'd gotten the gun back under control and shot him.

"They just stood there and stared at me, all crowded in the doorway."

Case stopped talking. She'd never told anyone about this, never even said the words before.

"What did you do?" Rain asked, though she had a pretty good idea of what had happened next.

"I killed them. All of them."

Case was numb and Rain could see the absence of light in the assassin's eyes. As the silence continued, Rain realized Case was gone. She was somewhere in her past and she'd probably stay there unless Rain could bring her attention back to the present.

"So, then what happened?" Rain asked.

It took a moment, but Case eventually looked up.

"I took off. I guess I tried to leave. I'm not sure. When Antonio's men found me a month later, I was almost dead from alcohol poisoning and malnutrition. Then I went back to work."

Case shook her head a little as if to clear the emotions away.

"Well, there's the story," Case finished.

Case quickly stood up from the bed, so that Rain wouldn't have a chance to grab her again. Even the idea of being touched was making her feel like a caged animal. But at the same time, she just wanted to disappear into Rain's embrace.

Case closed her eyes the way she always did to give herself an extra second to adjust to the dark before turning off the lights.

"Night," Case offered.

A few seconds later, Case headed for the second bed. Rain watched the dark form move silently through the room. The vibes that Case was throwing off screamed at Rain to just leave her alone, to turn over, and go to sleep. But Rain's own need to be touched at the moment overrode her usual acceptance of Case's need for space.

Rain quietly got up and knelt down next to Case's bed, so that she wasn't towering over the reclining woman. It only took a few seconds for Case to roll over and look at Rain's shadowed face.

"What?" Case asked gruffly.

She didn't have any spare energy to coddle Rain at the moment.

"Can I hold you?" Rain asked quietly.

Case felt the tears spring to her eyes in half a heartbeat and her throat closed up from too much emotion. Her first instinct was to run, to scream, to kick the shit out of Rain for making her feel anything. Instead, she nodded her head and scooted over enough for Rain to join her in the bed.

Rain was surprised at how quickly and easily Case snuggled up to her. Case's arm wrapped around her torso and held on for dear life. Rain returned the tight hug and that was when she felt the silent sobs that were shaking Case's body. Rain squeezed tighter and began muttering soothing words to the crying woman in an attempt to ease her suffering.

As Rain watched the black sky change to a gray-blue through the breaks in the curtains, Case finally drifted off to what seemed to be a restful sleep. But Rain remained awake, alone with her thoughts and her fading hope.

She didn't have a prayer of getting them both out safely and she knew it. At the very least, Case would be facing the death penalty for having killed so many people. Rain herself would be on dozens of hit lists as a key witness against Carlotti, so it was possible she wouldn't even live to see him go on trial for his crimes. But with all the evidence Rain and the others on the case were gathering, she knew he would eventually end up in prison. It was her only consolation, along with the fact that she had killed her brother's murderer.

Rain closed her eyes and her arms tightened unconsciously around Case. As she followed Case into dreamland, she promised herself she would do anything it took to keep them both safe. Anything.

CHAPTER 22

CASE SETTLED HER holsters on her hips and checked the distance from the guns to her hands. She adjusted the left one to hang a little lower. When she was satisfied with their placement, she picked up her duster and pulled it on. Last, but not least, she placed her black Stetson on the top of her head and then canted it to the side.

As she walked down the sidewalk, her boots thudded into the hard wooden planks and her spurs jingled. Everyone got out of her way and she could feel the excitement build, as she took up a spot in the middle of the town's only road.

She looked up to see the sun's placement in the sky and then back down at the sun-bleached dirt of the road. She closed her eyes to rid them of the spots leftover from the sun. As the purple circles faded, she opened her eyes and saw she wasn't alone anymore.

Another lone figure stood at the other end of the street. Dust settled around her feet as she came to a stop and faced Case. They both knew the whole town was watching them from behind partially closed shutters, but they ignored their audience and focused only on each other.

"You know, you don't have to do this, Deputy."

"That's Sheriff now, thanks to you," the woman said.

"Well, I guess congratulations are in order. And you don't have to thank me. I'm glad I could help," Case replied sarcastically.

"You didn't have to kill him. He was a good man."

"He challenged me. I never would have wasted my time on him otherwise."

"He was in love with me. What did you expect him to do when he found us?"

"Walk away. Accept that the better woman won. His death was his own doing. I just pulled the trigger," Case argued.

"He never would have challenged you, if he'd known who you were."

"And you never would have slept with me, right? Outlaw not good enough for ya, huh?"

"It was never like that. I don't care who you used to be. I care about who you are, who you're going to become."

"And that's why you challenged me?"

"I challenged you because I'm the law around here and you killed a man. I didn't have a choice."

"Neither do I."

There was silence as they stood and watched each other. By unspoken agreement, there were no more words exchanged. A minute went by and then Case watched the Sheriff draw her gun. It seemed to happen in slow motion and by the time the tall woman had her gun free of its holster, Case had already pulled the trigger on her own gun three times.

It took a moment for it to register on the other woman's body that she'd been shot, but then she fell to her knees and collapsed onto her side. Case stood there in shock for another moment as she realized her reflexes had reacted without her permission. She'd never meant to kill her. She hadn't intended to draw her gun at all.

Case ran forward to the Sheriff's body and skidded in the dirt on her chaps-covered knees. Her gun was still clutched in her hand, but she barely noticed it as she tried to pull the woman's body into her arms.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean it. Please don't die. Please don't leave me. Not again," she cried, the tears leaving streaks of white down her dust smudged face.

The Sheriff looked up at her and smiled.

"Next time," the woman coughed a little on the words.

"Wait! No, don't go. Not yet. I need you."

The Sheriff reached up to her leather vest. She grasped the silver star pinned to her chest and pulled it off. She lifted her arm and pushed it into Case's hand. Case closed her fingers over the hard metal and the soft flesh.

"Never forget," the Sheriff coughed and Case could smell the copper scent of blood coming from the back of the woman's throat. "That I love you."

The Sheriff closed her eyes, and then her body went limp in Case's arms.

"I love you, too," Case whispered.

As Case closed her own eyes, everything seemed to shift and dissolve. Instead of holding her lover's body, she was standing in a room. A man lay dead on the floor and she could hear a woman and children crying.

Case didn't open her eyes, but she could see nonetheless. A little boy and two young girls were huddled with their mother in the corner of the room. She'd herded them there after killing the man. They were all crying and the sounds were increasing as their hysteria went unchecked.

"Shut up!" Case yelled.

She couldn't think with all their noise. The crying subsided a little, but it didn't stop completely.

"Just let the children go. Please, they're just children. They don't understand any of thi..."

"I said shut up! Just shut up!"

The little boy began wailing and his mother tried to put a hand over his mouth to quiet him down. It didn't really help and Case could feel her control slipping. She was no longer detached and she knew that was not good in her line of work.

Case knew what she had to do and stalling wouldn't make it any easier. She couldn't stop the tears and she didn't even try. She knew it wouldn't throw off her aim.

Case raised her eyes and then her gun. In four quick shots, she placed a bullet in the boy's head, the mother's, and then the two girls'. It was suddenly very quiet and the only sound she could hear was her own breathing through the ringing in her ears. Then she turned the gun around and raised it to her own head. She heard the click and that was all. Then her photographic memory reminded her that the gun had already been fired six times; the accidental shot, the shot to Tony's head, then the four shots for the rest of the family. She resolved to use a different gun in the future, one with extra bullets.

With the lack of an easy out, it suddenly hit her again what she'd just done and she had to get out of there. She ran through the house trying to find the front door, but every door seemed to lead to another room or a stairway. Finally, she found the way out. She went through and Rain stood there waiting for her.

Case opened her eyes. Her heart was pounding, but she didn't make a sound or move a muscle, as she tried to sort through all the images from her dreams.