Crazy Hot (27 page)

“H-how, h-how could you?” she sputtered beside him, having to race to keep up with his long strides.

“It was easy, honey.” Too damn easy, which didn't do a damn thing to improve his mood.

“You can't, I can't . . . we, w-we can't leave him,” she insisted, starting to balk, trying to slow him down. Desperation rang in her voice. “They'll kill him.”

“Not if I can help it,” he gritted out between his teeth. “Come on.” He hustled her along even more quickly, breaking into a run.

“Where are you taking me?” she demanded to know.

“To Jeanette. Just stay put when we get there. The FBI is on its way.”

They rounded the corner of the last hangar in the row, and skidded to a stop in front of the '69 Camaro. He opened the door and started to put her in, but she resisted him.

“What are you doing? We can't leave him. I won't.” She was adamant, her hands digging into his upper arms, keeping him from putting her into the car.

“Regan, Regan.” He tried to calm her. “Quinn is the last person I would ever leave anywhere. I'm going back to him, right now, but you have got to stay here.”

“Why?” She was looking up at him, the same desperation he heard in her voice making her face stark.

“Because that's what Quinn wants, just like he wanted me to get you out of there any way I could.” He let his words sink in for a second.

“Quinn wanted you to do that?” Her voice went from desperation to a mix of hope and confusion.

“Yes, that was for Quinn,” he told her, then lowered his mouth and gave her one last, soft, slow, sweet, wet kiss. It was a rotten thing to do, but he'd practically heard her come in the warehouse, and he was half hard just from pretending to kiss her, and she was ungodly sweet, and he was just a little bit scared for Quinn—so he kissed Quinn's woman. When she opened her eyes, he kissed her again, just on the tip of the nose. “And that was for me. Now stay put.”

He crossed over to Roxanne and got his submachine gun out of the backseat. He still had the extra magazines in a pouch on his belt, but he no sooner turned to leave than he swore.

“Hell.” Things were happening faster than he'd expected.

“What?” she asked, rising back out of the car.

“Don't.” He gestured for her to get back in. “Stay with the car.”

“What's going on?” she said, sliding back inside.

“I think Roper's guns have finally arrived.” He pointed across the runway to a freight truck barreling toward the Avatrix hangar.

C
HAPTER

27

W
ELL, THAT HAD
gone really fucking well, Quinn thought, watching Hawkins practically suck Regan's tongue down his throat while he had his hands all over her. Yessiree, now he could die a happy man.

Breasts. Hawkins had touched her breasts, which Quinn was sure he hadn't authorized. But then, a guy didn't think he had to tell a best friend to keep his hands off his woman's breasts while he was kissing her. He'd thought that was just one of those unwritten rules that all guys—except, obviously, Hawkins—knew about.

And now came the real fun part.

He caught Roper's eye, only because to put it off any longer couldn't possibly be to his advantage. He was going to get hurt tonight. He'd known that going in, but he was counting on Hawkins to keep him from getting too busted up or killed.

Despite the breast thing, which he was definitely going to bring up at a future date, there wasn't anyone he trusted more. With Regan out of the way, nobody's hands were tied—except his own, of course, but only until he needed them. Even a flex cuff could be rigged for a quick escape.

He knew Hawkins, knew he was already headed back inside the hangar with a full arsenal of goodies for creating mayhem. If the FBI showed up as well, that would just be great.

If they'd all do it before Roper got too excited about his knife or his dogs, that would be even better.

The guy
was
getting a bad look in his eye, like he wouldn't mind having some fun before the guns showed up.

Yessiree, now would be a damn good time for the cavalry to arrive.

The rumbling of a truck engine turned his attention to the open hangar door, and Quinn breathed a sigh of relief. The guns, no doubt. Not the cavalry, but close enough. Closing the deal should buy him at least a half an hour before Roper took his head off.

Or at least that's what he'd thought.

“Hey, pretty boy,” Roper crooned, stalking him from around the desk. “You think you're pretty fucking smart, don't you? Well, let's just see how deep pretty is. You've been nothing but trouble for me from the beginning of this deal, and now we're gonna settle the score. Brad, Danny, hold him.”

Strong hands came around him on either side and dragged him backward into a chair, where they held him with bone-crushing diligence.

The knife blade glinted in Roper's hand, and in the next moment, he struck.

Searing, white-hot pain streaked through Quinn's body. He gritted his teeth against crying out, and at the same time thanked his lucky stars Roper hadn't decided to gut him on the spot. The bastard had gone for his face instead, cutting him from his temple to his ear and making a bloody mess, but the injury wasn't mortal.

“We'll finish this later, Younger,” Roper said, taking a handkerchief out of his pocket and using it to wipe blood off his knife. “You, me, and the dogs.”

He dropped the bloody handkerchief on the desk and walked toward the truck pulling up inside the hangar. Good old Brad went with him, but Danny-boy kept his death grip on Quinn's arm and his 9mm leveled directly behind Quinn's ear. It was enough to keep anybody from making any sudden moves.

Looking around, he carefully noted the other two doors he could see, the two men besides Danny and Brad who had come with Roper, and the exact location of the small canvas bag full of diamonds.

R
EGAN
couldn't take it. She couldn't sit still and hope for the best while Quinn was in Roper's clutches and his only hope was Hawkins.

Her glance strayed to Jeanette's ignition and the keys dangling from the steering column.

Did she dare?

Hawkins knew what he was doing, she was sure, but Hawkins was outnumbered, and though she kept looking, she hadn't seen sign one of the FBI.

And she couldn't just sit there. She just couldn't, not with Quinn's life on the line.

Quickly, before she changed her mind, she slid over the gear console and into the driver's seat. It felt different from the passenger side, distinctly, profoundly different. The driver's side had all the power. This was the side that made the decisions. This was the side that took the risks.

She reached for the keys—and hesitated. She knew what was going to happen when she turned the key. Jeanette was going to roar to life and eat her alive. The Camaro was going to shake and tremble with barely suppressed violence. She was going to want to eat, and what Jeanette ate was asphalt.

Regan looked out through the windshield at the old airport, at the runways and parking lots, and at all the pavement in between the hangars and the warehouses, all the pavement tying together the terminal and the old concourses.

There was more than enough asphalt, even for Jeanette.

“Okay, baby, be gentle. Don't hurt me, and I'll try real hard not to hurt you.” Before she could change her mind, she turned the key—and lurched forward with a growl and a scream and an instantly dead engine.

“Clutch, clutch, clutch,” she ground out between her teeth, mentally kicking herself for being so stupid. She knew about the clutch. She seldom used one herself, but she knew about them.

With the clutch in, she tried again and felt Jeanette come to life in all her growling glory, rising up around her like a phoenix from the ashes. Regan stepped on the gas, with the clutch still firmly in, and the Camaro shook like a wet dog, all over from her hood to her tail—and she roared.

Yes!
Regan thought. She could do this. She could save Quinn.

Carefully, she let out the clutch while stepping on the gas, and went through another teeth-jarring lurch, complete with growl and scream and a dead engine.

She almost cried in frustration. Quinn needed her. She had to do this.

Twice more she got the car going, only to fail with the clutch, before she finally got Jeanette moving in first gear. She'd been told it only got easier after that.

H
IDING
behind a crate close to where Roper held Quinn, Hawkins knew exactly what he was hearing. He couldn't believe it, but he knew exactly what it was: Regan McKinney committing suicide the hard way. God forbid, if she accidentally got all the way to sixth gear, she was going to end up dying in Utah before she even knew she'd left the ground and gone airborne.

Why hadn't he taken the keys?

He was afraid that was going to be a question that haunted him for years to come. Right along with why in the hell hadn't he run faster to get back to the hangar?

Quinn had been cut. Roper had cut him with his fucking knife, which Hawkins was personally going to bury in his throat, and Quinn was bleeding from a long gash down the side of his face, bleeding like a stuck pig.

Son of a bitch. Where was the fucking FBI? The best Hawkins could do on his own was to take out three, maybe four guys before one of the remaining guys decided to take out Quinn.

The truck had rolled in carrying the guns, and Roper's men were busy unloading them. And what amazing guns they were, assault rifles for the new millennium, with Buck Rogers styling and the firepower to blow away terrorists or anybody else right through a brick wall. Roper himself had taken one of the guns out and was breaking it down. Hawkins was impressed. The OICW was a double-barreled weapon with the top barrel shooting 20mm high-explosive fragmentation rounds, and the second barrel shooting 5.56mm ammunition. It had a bayonet, a laser range-finder, and even a video camera mounted on top.

But what Hawkins needed now was another shooter, not another gun. And for God's sake, he did not need Regan behind Jeanette's wheel, hell-bent on turning this into the biggest cluster-fuck of the century.

He could hear her lurching closer outside the hangar. Hell, he could smell Jeanette's clutch burning. Down below him, he saw Roper gesture for Tommy Jenkins, one of his guys from the Jack O' Nines and Roper's whoring buddy, to go check it out. Everyone else grabbed an OICW, some ammo, and locked and loaded.

Perfect.

Running along the tops of the crates, he followed Tommy Jenkins to the hangar door. The minute Tommy stepped outside, out of sight of the others, Hawkins dropped him with a silent burst from the suppressed HK MP5.

Looking farther out, he could see Jeanette struggling to be set free, inching her way across the parking lot, heading for the hangar, straining to get into second gear.

And suddenly he thought, hell, this could actually work. As long as Regan didn't get herself killed. He raced back along the tops of the crates to cover Quinn.

Damn, Regan was a long, desperate minute away from him. If she could just find second, or God, please, third, she could have Quinn sitting in Jeanette's lap in under fifteen seconds. Less than ten, if she didn't choke. In five, if she'd had any idea of what in the hell she was doing. One, if she'd been Quinn.

But she wasn't Quinn, and she didn't know what in the hell she was doing. She was going to be too late.

Even the truck drivers had armed themselves and were ready for a shootout. There was no place for everything to go but downhill fast, and Hawkins quickly picked his best line of fire to cover both Quinn and Regan, thinking this would be a good time for Leeder to show up with his FBI buddies—and then the miracle happened.

He heard it coming straight at him. He heard it in the sudden surge of power. He heard it in the headers and the big block and the exhaust. Either Regan had found her way into second gear, or Jeanette had dragged her there. Third followed with a squeal of tires, and when she hit fourth, Hawkins was already screaming,
“Brakes!”

By then, it was already too late for brakes, but that didn't stop her from hitting them—hard.

S
WEET
Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and Jeanette.
Quinn had heard the Camaro coming, heard the low throaty growl he had fine-tuned to within a decibel of perfection, heard someone mangling her gears and her clutch—and he knew Regan had taken on the beast and was getting eaten alive.

Then she got lucky and started climbing her way through the gears. There wasn't a guy in the hangar who didn't stop what he was doing and turn to see what in the hell was heading his way in a rolling cloud of smoke and thunder.

But it was already too late.

Jeanette roared through the open hangar door, wheels spinning, smoke clinging to her tires, heading straight for disaster. Then Regan hit the brakes, and all hell broke loose—in slow motion.

Quinn watched the whole disaster unfold frame by frame, even as he dove for the desk. Jeanette went into a tail-spinning turn that plowed her rear end into a rack of barrels, breaking one open and spewing liquid fuel over a wide swath of the hangar, including the desk, which she'd barely missed.

The smell of gasoline filled the air, potent, breath-stealing. To Quinn's left, he heard a man scream. One of Roper's goons had been pinned in the wreckage. Roper had been knocked out cold and was lying facedown on the hangar floor, blood running from his head, gasoline pooling around his prone form. The dogs had disappeared in a flash of black tails and flying paws. Jeanette roared in fury, her tires smoking, but she didn't budge, not so much as a foot. Her tail end was buried under the twisted rack and the remaining barrels, the power of her engine making the whole thing rock, and shake, and grind together.

Quinn dragged himself to his feet, his mind racing, trying to catch his breath.

Geezus.
He ran toward the Camaro, slipped on the slick floor, and fell in a heap. Swearing, he scrambled back to his feet. Shit. He could smell the heat coming off Jeanette, heat off her tires, heat off her screaming engine—and the whole fucking place was doused in gasoline.

Ripping his cuffs off, he slid up the side of the Camaro and tore open Jeanette's door. Regan stared at him wide-eyed, trembling, a cut across her forehead. Gas was pouring down on the Camaro from the punctured barrels above.

Pulling her free of the car, Quinn took her hand in his and ran like hell.

Hawkins joined them at the hangar door, covering them.

They'd cleared the hangar and were skidding around the corner of a freight office building when Avatrix blew. The three of them hit the ground in a pile, forced down by the concussion of the explosion.

Looking up, Quinn saw a ton of debris go flying into the air, and a ton of it come flying down.

Behind them, half a dozen cars came to a screeching halt. He heard people piling out of the vehicles, and in the next minute they were surrounded by the FBI.

It was a zoo after that.

Fire crews were on the scene within fifteen minutes of the explosion, and the police weren't far behind.

Leeder, the Special Agent in Charge, secured the place for the FBI. Leeder and Hawkins had a brief conversation while the medics cleaned up Quinn and Regan. Quinn hadn't let go of her hand, not once, since they'd run out of the hangar, but she hadn't said a word to him. He'd asked her a few questions—“Are you okay? Do you hurt anywhere? Do you need some water?” But all he'd gotten was either a nod or a shake of her head.