At Close Range (24 page)

Then he chuckled, flattened her hand against the floor and set the blade against the first joint of her index finger.

“I always like to take a souvenir,” he said conversationally as the lights flickered overhead.

And he began to saw.

AT THE SOUND of the gunshot, Seth had hit the button on the wall, intending to barrel through and take out the man on the other side. But when the power kicked back on moments later, the sliding door opened to reveal no room, no man. Instead, he saw the outside of a beehive-shaped structure made of two-by-fours, steel beams and composite.

He’d wound up on the outside of the display somehow.

And Cassie was inside it. He could see the bullet hole punched through the top and hear the muffled sounds of a struggle within.

He wanted to shout her name, to tell her he was coming, but he didn’t dare. The bastard had a gun, and Seth had no intention of being a target as he scaled the sloped side of the display.

He would have to be quick and quiet.

There was no other choice.

He holstered his weapon to leave his hands free, and set his foot on the lowest tier of steel beams. He heard voices inside, and wondered what had happened to the third man. His gut kicked a warning, but he didn’t know what else to do. He couldn’t wait for backup, couldn’t take the time to look for the mastermind.

He needed to get to Cassie.

Needed to save her.

He tested the beam, jiggling a moment to see if the structure would sway, or if he would alert the man inside. When there was only a small noise, Seth started up, praying he would be in time.

Praying she’d still be alive when he reached the top.

THE FIRST SLICE was a white fury of pain, of bodily insult and injury. Cassie bucked against Nevada and screamed, almost paralyzed with disbelief that he’d cut her, that this was happening to her. She wasn’t supposed to be caught like this. She was a cop for chrissake! She was trained! She was—

Captured. Powerless. She wept as the knife bit deeper into her finger and grated against bone. She screamed again. An unholy light crept into her captor’s cold eyes as he fed off her pain.

“That’s it,” he murmured, “that’s the way. Let it out. Nobody can hear you, he’s promised the back exits are blocked. You can scream as loud as you want. Even if they can hear you, they can’t get to you. You’re all alone.”

This time when she screamed, her voice cracked with pain, with the hopelessness.

Her mind fragmented away from the weight of his body, the feel of his foot across her throat and the hot sear of the blade severing nerves and tendons. She though about Seth, her lover.

Her love.

He was gone and she’d missed out on telling him she loved him. He might not want to hear it, but she didn’t care. She needed him to know.

Seth! she called in her heart, though she knew he was already gone. Help me!

And then suddenly there was a light shining above her, a hand reaching down, an angel coming down through the authentic-looking smoke hole in the center of the model kiva—

Only it was no angel. It was Seth.

And the look on his face would have done a demon proud.

HE SAW THE BLOOD first—Cassie’s blood spilling too red over the knife, over the man’s hand. Her skin was pale and the horrible, wrenching screams had stopped.

Please, God, let me be in time.

He dropped down through the hole and landed square atop Cassie’s captor as the bastard reared back and lifted the knife high for the final slash. The man shouted and twisted, slashing high and wild while Seth clamped his legs around his torso and squeezed as hard as he could. The wiry man bucked beneath him and they spun and went down in a sprawl.

Seth slammed into the floor hard and felt his right knee give. Agony howled up his leg and his calf went numb, but he ignored the pain. He staggered to his feet and reached for his holster.

“Seth, look out. He’s got a gun!”

Cassie’s voice brought a wash of heat and relief, but her message came a split second too late. The man tossed his knife aside and hauled out a gun that looked police-issue. Maybe the one Cassie had lost in the earlier chase after the first murder. Maybe another.

The men faced each other for a heartbeat, weapons pointed at each other’s hearts, neither flinching.

The man’s average-looking face flattened in an eerily emotionless smile. “Even if you kill me, the planner will still kill you both. He’s watching even now. Like an overseer.

A god.” He raised his voice and called, “Tell him! Tell him that there’s no way out, that I’ll have my women and my souvenirs, that nobody can take that away from me!

Not the slut. Not anybody!”

His only answer was silence.

The man’s breathing sounded suddenly harsh in the false circular room. Varitek spared a glance at Cassie. He’d expected her to be curled up in the corner, cradling her wounded hand.

Instead, she was inching her way toward the knife. When she saw his glance, she mouthed, Distract him, damn it!

But the madman was already distracted, and becoming more agitated by the moment. “Tell him!” he shouted toward the ceiling. “Tell him that you’ve got the stupid-ass Bear Claw cops chasing their own tails now, that it’s all gone according to your plan!”

When there was still no answer, the gun in the man’s hand began to shake. His eyes went wide and white and his lips pulled back across his gums. “Tell them!”

“He’s gone,” Seth said. He kept the gun trained on the other man, but held out a hand. “He left you. You don’t have any backup. Give me the weapon. I can help you. I can—”

“You can die!” the madman screamed, and he fired.

Seth saw it coming and threw himself flat, but there was no place to hide in the round room, no way out except the smoke hole fifteen feet off the ground. He rolled and fired, missed and fired again, catching the other man in the meaty part of the leg with his second shot.

The bullet should have brought the guy down. Instead, pushed past pain by betrayal or insanity or both, the madman twisted his lips in a grimace of disgust, raised his weapon and sighted on Seth. He said, “The plan works both ways. I may not have any backup, but neither do you.”

His finger tightened on the trigger and Seth dove for the bastard’s legs, braced for the burn of impact, but instead the man screamed and collapsed in an ungraceful heap.

A buck knife protruded from his ankle.

Seth flipped the bastard onto his belly, stripped his belt off and used it to strap his hands and feet together. Once that was done, he leaned close and said, “You’re wrong. I had the best backup I could ever ask for.” Seth grinned, feeling the first stirring of relief. “I’ve got Cassie.”

WHEN SETH TURNED to her, breathing heavily and looking every inch the arrogant, too-bossy Fed she’d once ordered off her crime scene, Cassie smiled.

“You’re alive.”

He limped over to her, favoring his right leg, looked down at her with those serious green eyes, and touched her cheek. “So are you.”

He kissed her, and somehow the words didn’t seem so important anymore. She leaned into him, savored the solid strength and the warmth of him, and felt a final tear leak from between her lashes.

He caught it with a kiss. “Finger hurt?”

“Not unless I think about it.” Which she was determined not to do. She held her wounded hand tight to her chest and told herself it was numb. Which it was. Mostly.

“I’m just…” She trailed off, trying to find the right words. “I thought you were gone. In the explosion.” Which reminded her. “The voice! There’s a third man, he—”

Seth stopped her with a gentle touch of his fingertip to her lower lip. “I know. He’s long gone. I wound up in some sort of access tunnel and found vid screens, microphones, the whole bit. He’d made a decent nest for himself. We’ll get some evidence off of it. Later.” He eased her to her feet. “Much later. First, it’s the hospital for you.”

She glanced down and smiled crookedly at his knee. “You, too.”

He chuckled. “We’re quite a pair, aren’t we?”

It seemed wrong to think of love with a woman’s discarded body in the corner and an unconscious man bound with his own belt on the floor. But then again, Cassie had never been one to do things by the rules when it came to relationships.

Neither, it appeared, did Seth, because as the sounds of banging and shouts from outside the sealed door indicated that the Bear Claw cops had found them and were just about through the rubble and the door, Seth leaned down and kissed her again, and then said, “I’ve been thinking.”

She savored the taste of him and the rush of good, solid warmth that battled the rising pain in her arm. “Yeah? Me, too.” She slanted a sidelong glance at him. “I’m bad-tempered. Moody. You won’t always like me.”

He shrugged. “True. But even when I’m ticked off, I’ll still love you.”

And just like that, he cut the legs right out from underneath her little speech. She stared at him. “Oh.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Is that a good ‘oh’ or a bad ‘oh’?”

“A good one.” She closed the distance between them and touched her lips to his. “I love you, too. I’m not quite sure what to do with the feeling yet, but I know it’s there. Will you stick with me while I figure it out?”

“We’ll stick with each other,” he said gruffly, and gathered her close for a longer, wetter, hotter kiss.

They were wrapped together like that when the others broke through. There was an immediate cheer, laced with a good dose of catcalls, but for a change the hoots didn’t bother Cassie, because they weren’t aimed at her. Not really. Or if they were, they were meant in a good way.

A part-of-the-team way.

As she and Seth were hustled out of the kiva and down to the ambulance, she couldn’t help glancing back at the dead woman and the trussed-up figure of the man she’d known simply as Nevada.

Seth met her eyes when she turned back to pick her way through the rubble leading out to the street.

“He’s still out there,” Seth said, voice sober. “There’s still one more. The planner, he called him. The mastermind of this whole twisted plan.”

“Yeah.” Cassie suppressed a shiver, knowing the city wouldn’t be safe until they’d identified and captured the third man. He could be anyone. Anywhere. She had nothing more to go on than a distorted voice and a feeling of malevolence.

But they had the evidence from the vent shaft, she thought, feeling a hint of optimism. She glanced back again and saw Nevada being hustled out in handcuffs.

And they had the second man. Maybe they’d learn something from questioning him, maybe from backtracking his movements over the past months.

Maybe.

“We’ll manage it,” Seth said quietly. He took her hand. “How do you feel about commuting a bit to get to Bear Claw?”

She slanted him a look. “You mean from Denver?”

“Maybe halfway between. A compromise of sorts. I’ll sell my place, you give up yours. It could work.” He looked unsettled, a little uncertain, two emotions she never would have expected to associate with Seth Varitek.

And because he looked like she felt, excited and confused at the same time, she grinned. “A compromise. That sounds good.”

And it did.