Brazen (7 page)

Fifteen

Nick

Nick walked under the attic door and saw a strap. When he opened the hall closet, he found a hook hanging on the wall. Using it, he tugged down the pull strap. A good yank, and the attic door opened, steps sliding out with it. 

As he climbed those steps, there was no doubt the blood scent came from up there. The attic was nearly pitch dark, though, and he had to pause for his eyes to adjust to the light coming from the hall below. 

The attic was empty. Completely empty. Whatever the Stokes had brought with them when they moved, it obviously all fit elsewhere.

With no obstacles to block his view, Nick didn’t have to move from the top of the steps to scan the entirety of the massive open space. And to assure himself there was nothing up here. Nothing but the smell of blood.

He walked out into the attic. It didn’t take long before he spotted the blood pool, glistening on the dust-covered floor. When he stopped next to it, and his footsteps subsided, he picked up a sound. A very soft
plink
. Then silence.

He circled the blood pool. It was perfectly formed, with no footsteps leading from it, no empty spots inside, no sign that whoever bled here had crawled or been taken away. Yet there was clearly not a body.

Plink
.

This time he saw the drop hit the pool. He looked up and saw only the black roofline above. When he blinked, his night vision adjusted and—

“Shit.”

She was on the ceiling. Sharon Stokes. Spread eagled above him, her throat and wrists bloodied.

Nick took out his phone and shone the light up at Sharon’s body. Only then could he see how she’d been fastened there, and when he did, his stomach lurched. He lowered the light and noticed the tools hidden in the shadow by the wall. A nail gun and a ladder.

Malcolm nailed her to the ceiling, cut her throat and let her bleed out, hanging there.

Had she regained consciousness? God, he hoped not.

He stared up at that body, and there was a part of him that couldn’t quite believe it. Yes, the Malcolm he’d known was a sadistic son of a bitch, but this? What had the Nasts done to him? Nick wasn’t sure he wanted to know—for now, it was enough to understand what he was dealing with…if he could.

•••

Nick found Vanessa and Stokes where he’d left them. Stokes lay on his stomach, both hands fastened again. Vanessa stood over him with a gun.

“Your wife’s gone,” Nick said.

Stokes screwed up his face, and Nick knew what he’d say if he could.
Of course she’s gone, you fucking moron. That’s what I told you.

“I mean she’s dead. Malcolm killed her before he left.”

Stokes went still. That look of horror started to return, then it vanished, his face hardening as he bucked up, managing to get to his knees. Nick motioned for Vanessa to leave him be. He might have little sympathy for what Malcolm did to Stokes, but he felt it now, for his wife. 

When Stokes pushed to his feet, he lunged at Nick. Vanessa grabbed his bound hands and yanked him back. He shook her off and settled for glaring at Nick with all the hate he could muster as he mouthed “Liar.” 

“I wish I was,” Nick said. “But think about it. You know Malcolm. Is he really going to bother taking a hostage? All that mattered was convincing you to kill us for him.”

He could see in Stokes’ hesitation that he knew Nick was right. He just didn’t want to believe it. And he had reason not to—if Nick claimed Sharon was dead, there was nothing stopping Stokes from helping him find Malcolm. If anything, he’d have more incentive.

“Where is she?” Stokes mouthed.

When Nick didn’t answer fast enough, Stokes figured it out. He turned toward the living room. Nick moved to swing into Stokes’ path, but Vanessa stopped him.

“Let him go,” she murmured. “He’s not giving us what we need until he sees for himself.”

“I know,” Nick said. “But…” He lowered his voice. “He shouldn’t see her like that.”

“It’s bad?” Vanessa whispered.

Nick nodded, grim-faced. He broke into a jog to catch up with Stokes, already cresting the top of the stairs.

“You don’t want to do this,” Nick called as he loped up behind him. “Let me bring her to you.”

Stokes was on the extended attic steps. Nick grabbed for his pant leg as he ascended. Stokes wheeled and kicked. Nick caught his leg. Stokes yanked, managing to keep his balance with his bound hands, but barely, ready to topple at any moment.

“Let him go,” Vanessa said.

Nick looked at her. He wanted to haul Stokes’ ass down those stairs, pin him on the damned floor and tell him he wasn’t seeing his wife that way. That no matter what a vicious asshole Stokes was, he obviously loved her, and that shouldn’t be his final memory of her.

But he knew if Elena was here, she’d say the same thing as Vanessa. Their goal was Malcolm. The sooner they went after him, the better.

He released Stokes. The man stumbled up the stairs. It was pitch black up there for anyone without werewolf night vision, and for a moment, Nick felt a surge of satisfaction. 

Stokes didn’t pause, though. He strode to the wall and flipped a switch with his teeth. A row of lights flickered on as Nick climbed the steps. Stokes saw the blood immediately. He walked to it, gaze tripping across the floor, looking for her. When he reached the edge of that perfect puddle, he turned and glared at Nick, as if to say “Where the hell is she?”

Nick crossed his arms and glared back. Beside him, Vanessa inhaled sharply. Stokes heard. He looked at her and followed her gaze and…

Silence. For at least ten seconds there was silence. Then Stokes screamed, a horrible, wordless scream of rage. He wheeled on Nick and if his hands hadn’t been bound, Nick was certain he would have tried to kill him. 

Instead Stokes stood there, bristling like an enraged boar.

“Get her down,” he mouthed.

“Fuck you,” Nick said.

Stokes charged. Nick slammed him in the gut and sent him flying, coughing and choking. He hit the floor. Nick advanced on him.

“I told you she was dead. I offered to get her down before you saw her. I’m not doing it now. If you want revenge, then tell us whatever you can about Malcolm. Then we’ll cut you loose, and
you
can get her down.”

Stokes snarled and raged, but Nick didn’t budge. Yes, it would be a mercy to get Sharon down for him. It wasn’t just that Stokes didn’t deserve mercy. It was a question of dominance. Despite being bound at gunpoint, Stokes clearly considered himself the alpha dog here. Nick was an idiot. Vanessa was a woman. They’d damn well better jump when he said jump. And if they did, he’d see no reason to give them what they wanted. 

So Nick watched Stokes rage, and stood there, waiting, until his anger and grief began to sputter.

“Let me repeat myself,” Nick said. “You tell us what we want. We let you go. You take her down. Otherwise, we walk out of here, and I pick up Malcolm’s trail on my own, and you can figure out how the hell you’re going to call for help without the use of your hands or tongue.”

Stokes struggled in his cuffs, but Vanessa had bound him well.

Nick turned for the door. Stokes lunged for him. Nick spun, caught him in the gut with another right and left him on the floor, heaving for breath.

They made it halfway down the main stairs before Stokes came after them and gestured that, yes, he’d tell them what he could.

Sixteen

Nick

They let Stokes sit at the desk and type on his laptop—a quicker way to communicate. He said that Malcolm had come by earlier that day, as they knew. He wanted Stokes’ help, though of course, he claimed he was “offering him an opportunity.” Stokes played along. 

Malcolm needed money. He’d mooched some from Stokes already, but he was smart enough to see the income stream wouldn’t last forever and he’d lose a valuable ally if he kept at it. So he’d found a job on his own. He called it assassin work; Stokes called it thug work. 

The job was lucrative, though, and Stokes had expressed interest. He’d asked for details and gotten enough to be sure the job was feasible. Stokes said he’d consider it, and they made plans to meet the next day. Then Malcolm left the house, with Tina on his tail, and that’s when it all went wrong.

Stokes didn’t know where Malcolm was staying, but he listed a few hotels of the sort Malcolm favored these days, upper-end but not luxurious, balancing his budget with his ego. He provided the make of the car Malcolm was driving, but he was certain Malcolm would have ditched it by now. Stokes had taught him a few things about being a hired killer.

They asked for details about the job, then, as another route to Malcolm.

West coast client
, Stokes typed.
No name. Sorcerer. Suspect he runs a cut-rate Cabal-wannabe operation.

Nick looked at Vanessa.

“There are a few dozen of them,” she said. “Anything from million-dollar operations to borderline street gangs.”

Expect this one to be in the middle
, Stokes wrote.
Up-and-comers. Malcolm said—

Stokes stopped. Nick looked toward the window. He could pick up the distant wail of a siren. He’d been too preoccupied to notice the faint sound sooner.

Vanessa motioned subtly for Nick to check it out. “Keep going,” she said to Stokes. “What did Malcolm say?”

Nick walked through to the next room. He could pick up the sirens better.

“Ambulance,” he called back softly. “Midnight heart attack maybe. I’ll take a look.”

It was impossible to get any kind of wide view from the front windows. Nick walked to the entry door. The outside lights had been on when they arrived. He flicked them off and eased open the door. He could hear the siren, coming steadily closer. And more now, engines and tires. More than one vehicle. There was a second siren too, harder to identify.

Fire engine?

Uh, yeah. What was the chance of a fire in the neighborhood right now?

Pretty good…if Malcolm set it to draw attention to Stokes’ house. To frame his former partner for murder.

But that was a roundabout way of doing things. Malcolm was never roundabout. If that’s what he wanted to do, he’d just call and report someone was seriously injured—

“Shit!”

Nick raced back into the house. As he did, he heard Vanessa tell Stokes to, “Sit your ass down in that chair.” He hurried through the living room. Vanessa was arguing with Stokes, her back to Nick, gun pointed at Stokes, who was standing.

“We need to—” Nick began.

She glanced over her shoulder. Stokes tensed. Before Nick could say a word, Vanessa had twisted back to her target, but Stokes was already in flight. Stokes grabbed her in a chokehold and went for the gun. Most people would keep a grip, try to somehow shoot the person behind them. Which would be nearly impossible, and Vanessa knew it. 

She had the chamber open, emptying the gun so deftly that Nick heard the cartridges hit the ground at the same time he saw her toss the gun aside. Then she clamped down on Stokes’ arm with ten blazing fingers. He snarled, but either the painkillers hadn’t worn off or he just didn’t give a shit.

Stokes backed up, his arm tightening around Vanessa’s neck, her eyes bulging. Nick could smell her fingers burning into his arm, but he didn’t relax his hold. Not until Nick had him in his own chokehold.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Nick said. “The cops are on their way. Malcolm called them in. We’re trying to save your ass.”

Vanessa wrenched free, gasping as she spoke. “He doesn’t want to be saved. He wants us to decide he’s too much trouble and put him down.”

Nick looked at her as she struggled to catch her breath.

“His wife is dead upstairs,” Vanessa said. “He knows Malcolm will have framed him as his final revenge—hopefully exacted
after
Stokes has helpfully killed us. But his timing was a little off.”

Nick gave Stokes a shove. “You need to run. Just don’t try running with us.”

Vanessa grabbed up her gun and slapped it back together as she asked, “How far off are they?” 

“Maybe a couple of blocks. We’ll need to—”

Stokes snatched the knife from earlier. Nick wheeled, ready to block his attack. Only he didn’t attack. He drew the knife back and plunged it into his heart.

Nick lunged for him, but Vanessa grabbed the back of his shirt.

“He was going to do it,” she said. “It was just a question of whether he took us along.”

“But the cops wouldn’t have thought he cut out his own tongue.”

“Doesn’t matter. Malcolm wasn’t letting him walk out of this. Now let’s hope
we
can.”

She hurried through the kitchen door. Nick followed.

•••

“Wait,” Vanessa said. “Wait…”

Nick could point out that he hadn’t given any indication that he planned to do anything
except
wait. They were in the yard behind the Stokes house. They could just make a run for it easily from here…if their rental car wasn’t parked five doors down. They couldn’t abandon it. Vanessa had rented it using an untraceable account, but it still had their luggage—with fingerprints—in the trunk.

So they were waiting for a chance to run through the rear yards. The ambulance had indeed stopped at the Stokes house. So had two police cruisers. The cops had gone in first and called to the paramedics, presumably when they found Stokes dying on the study floor.

The trick here was to time their departure just right. Wait until everyone was in the house dealing with the situation and then run.

One pair of officers had circled the property. A perfunctory search. Stokes had obviously stabbed himself. It wouldn’t even be clear that there’d been an intruder until they realized their victim was missing his tongue.

Now the officers had stepped inside. Vanessa was holding off, making sure they didn’t immediately pop back out to check something they’d missed. Hence the, “Wait…wait…” 

“Still clear?” she whispered.

“Yep.”

“Any sirens?”

“Everything’s fine,” he said. “I’d tell you otherwise.”

“All right then. Let’s go.”

Nick steered them through this yard and the next. There were fences to scale and it was obvious Vanessa was out of practice, but she didn’t pretend otherwise, letting Nick help her as they went.

At the halfway point, Nick stayed on the fence after he’d helped Vanessa down. He rose, balancing, to get a look back at the Stokes house. It wasn’t exactly a clear angle, but he could see enough of the road to be sure no new vehicles had joined the others stopped at the Stokes house. As he readied himself to jump down, though, he caught the sound of police sirens—coming from the same direction they needed to go.

Nick crouched on the fence as two cars pulled in with the others. Two detectives went inside. Two uniforms stayed on the front lawn.

He jumped down and told Vanessa.

“They’re guarding against curious neighbors,” she said. “They may have shut off the lights and sirens before they pulled in, but people will have heard them. Any minute now, every occupied home here will have someone peering out, trying to see what’s going on. Which means we need to move. Fast. Nosy neighbors are worse than cops.”

They set out side by side as they jogged across the back of the yards, both on alert for lights. They’d got through one when it seemed as if half the neighborhood lit up. When a door opened in the yard they were crossing, they dove behind the shed.

“Go on,” a voice muttered, thick with sleep. “Be quick about it, Mitzie.”

Nick swore.

Vanessa whispered, “We’re fine. City dogs are used to people nearby, and any pooch named Mitzie isn’t going to be a world-class guard dog.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Nick whispered back. “Not when one of us is a werewolf.”

He’d barely finished before the dog started wailing louder than the damned sirens. Vanessa was right about one thing—Mitzie was no guard dog. She’d caught one whiff of Nick and started throwing herself against the door to be let back in before the monster devoured her.

“Go,” he whispered to Vanessa. “Take the lead.”

“I’m jumping the rear fence,” she said.

By going over the back, they could stay blocked by the shed. And they were blocked from Mitzie’s door, now open, her owner muttering, “What the hell?” as the dog barreled inside. As soon as Nick topped the fence, though, a deck light turned on in the yard he was climbing
into
. A figure appeared at the window.

“Go!” he called down to Vanessa.

Nick jumped. He heard a muffled shout from inside the house and knew he’d been spotted. 

Nick made a run for it—in the opposite direction. Over the side fence. Then over the back one. Through the yard where Mitzi’s owner had, thankfully, retreated indoors to tend to his distraught pet. Over the next fence. Finally into the yard of the empty house where they’d parked.

Vanessa had the car running and the garage door up. He raced around to the passenger side and jumped in.

“Go!” he said, when she looked over at him.

“The neighbor saw you run into this yard,” she said. “If we back out now—”

“I went the other way around.” He rolled down the window. “The witness will tell the cops I ran
toward
the Stokes house. Now go.”