Kiss and Tell (32 page)

That Jake knew the man beside him was obvious. Another betrayal?
Oh, Jake
.

She and Duchess stayed hidden until the men moved out of sight among the trees and the sound of laughter drifted with the snowflakes.

"Now what, girl?
Now
what do we do?" She looked at the dog, hoping for an answer. The gun in her pocket weighed a ton, as did the one in her hand. Fine and dandy. She had three guns, a knife, and a sock full of bullets. And zero knowledge of how to use the first two. She couldn't very well sneak up behind the bad guys and shoot them like they did in the movies, and her mind shied away from anything as grisly as using the knife.

They were heading down to what was left of Jake's cabin. So they
didn't
know about the entrance to the lair up here ... and they didn't know she was alive. They wouldn't be looking for her.

"Okay, puppy girl," Marnie whispered. "What we have to do is give these guns to Jake.
Somehow
."

Duchess agreed with a woof and, tail tucked, followed the men, Marnie right beside her.

The men talked in low voices. She couldn't discern what they said and could barely see Jake up ahead of them.

The four men stopped by the log in front of what had once been a four-sided building. She frowned. She could have sworn there'd been five men counting Jake. But maybe not. She hadn't had a clear view of them as they'd passed her.

From her hiding place amongst the bushes, she saw that the cabin had been reduced to kindling and ash. The chimney held up part of the roof, but the walls had collapsed and scattered on the ground. Damp wood smoldered, and every now and then a knothole produced a shower of sparks.

Her breath hitched as Jake moved into view. The moon lit the area like a spotlight on a stage.

A frisson of gut-wrenching fear paralyzed her for a moment. Somehow in all the hullabaloo, she'd almost forgotten that he wasn't invincible.

Jake stood with his back to her. His wrists were tied. His posture appeared perfectly relaxed, but he was carefully trying to free his hands as the other man spoke.

Move back about ten feet, would you, big guy?
Marnie urged, frustrated and terrified.

A showy display of sparks and flame shot into the air. "You always were irresponsible with your possessions, Lurch. Now you don't have a cabin."

Lurch?
Marnie frowned. One of Jake's Musketeers?

The man approached Jake. He was almost as tall, but of slighter build. And he moved as gracefully as a dancer. Marnie hated him on sight.

"Didn't
want
the damn cabin, wonder boy. I want the lair. And the land. This is gonna be SPA's new training facility."

"It's good to want things."

His friend hit Jake with his gun, right across the side of his face. Marnie winced and bit her lip so as not to cry out. Her heart pounded so hard she felt they must surely be able to hear it. Tears stung her eyes.

The fight-or-flight urge was overwhelming. Filled with a mix of fear and potent rage, she resisted with everything in her.

The man grabbed Jake by the throat, an expression of pure, unadulterated loathing on his narrow face. "How do I get into the lair?"

"I'm afraid that secret will have to die with me," Jake said calmly, his hands busy with whatever was holding his wrists together.

"Palm print?" Lurch demanded. "All I have to do is chop off your freakin' hand. Piece of cake."

Jake's muscles barely shifted as he tested the bonds and said flatly, "You have to find the panel first."

"I'll find it." Lurch started walking around him, chewing his lower lip like a child denied a favorite toy. "Bet you put in that retinal scanner we talked about."

"Bet you're right." Twist. Pull. Stretch.

That's not going to work, Jake
. Marnie waited in an agony of suspense and felt sick. They were going to chop off Jake's hand and poke his eyes out any second, while she sat here in the shrubbery gnawing a hole in her lips and wetting her pants.
Think, damn it. Think
. She reached out carefully to touch Duchess, who lay beside her.

The dog was gone.

"I was trying to be civilized about this." Lurch motioned to his goons.

The scene unfolded before her eyes with the speed of a supersonic jet. Horrified, Marnie watched them race over to Jake, each grabbing an arm in a death lock. She dug her fingernails into her palms and bit her lip until she tasted blood.

*

Jake braced for the assault.

Lurch's fist shot out and ground into his chin. To the midriff, to the chest, to the face again. He felt the warmth of blood run from his nose as his wrist strained against the plastic handcuffs, drawing them tighter until they cut off the circulation in his hands.

Pain, like a hot knife, sliced into him as Lurch struck his wounded shoulder. The impact reverberated throughout his body, causing his stomach to heave. Lurch punched him in the stomach again. Several times. His fist landed on Jake's cheekbone with a dull crack that jerked his head back.

Lurch danced in front of him. Psyched. Manic. Enjoying the power.

Jake managed to dodge a pile-driver left to his face by quick footwork. Instead of retreating, Jake closed in, brought up his leg fast, and kneed Lurch in the groin. The other man spun aside as the goons pulled Jake out of range. But it was still a hit. Lurch doubled over, cursing a blue streak.

"You always were a miserable, sniveling coward," Jake taunted as Lurch slowly straightened, eyes watering and glittering wildly. "Need
two
men to hold me? What kind of man can't fight his own battles? Come on, you weaseling, twofaced bastard. Come and get me. Easy target, huh, Lurch? Cuffed, your muscle restraining me? Hell, even a kid could beat me up like this. Where's the sport?"

With a jerk of his head, Lurch called the goons off. Jake rolled his shoulders, not shifting his focus.

"You're not going to taunt me into losing control. I know how you operate."

Pain showed in the radiating lines beside Lurch's eyes. He clasped his groin in both hands, staying well back although no one was holding Jake any longer.

"No. You
knew
how I operated. A lot has changed in six years," Jake told him flatly.

Someone was behind him. Someone who didn't want to be seen or heard. While Lurch circled him, Jake casually took a step back, then another as Lurch paced, so filled with his own dramatics he didn't notice. Jake's gaze shot to the tangos who'd moved back and now stood closer to the fire. Their focus was on their boss while they warmed their asses.

Another gentle rustle behind the concealing bushes.

Who the hell was it? Lurch's man? The one who'd peeled off before they'd come into the clearing? Unlikely. The man wouldn't be skulking in the shrubbery. But where was he? Had he gone off to find the rest of the team? And who the hell was behind him?

Damn. Could it be the
dog?
He'd forgotten about Duchess.

Lurch stormed toward the smoking cabin, turned around, and glared at Jake. His two lieutenants flanked him and kept their weapons trained at Jake's heart. Neither had moved from his position.

"Thing is, Lurch, or rather Dancer," Jake said quietly while casually stepping another pace back toward the dense bushes behind him. An overhanging tree put him partially in shadow. "It's no biggie to take my eye. But you'd have what? Five minutes, tops, to use it to scan? Not great odds when you still don't know where the scanner device is, is it?"

"Shut up. Just shut up."

Jake backed up another step. Whoever was behind him stopped breathing.

Afraid of him? Or for him?

A man? Or the dog?

"The problem won't matter soon," Jake said loudly. "We're all going to freeze our asses off out here. In case you hadn't noticed, we're in for a mother of a snowstorm."

"I told you to shut the hell up!"

Lurch was losing his cool, Jake thought with satisfaction. He felt the sharp prick of a pine needle against his wrist as he came flush against the foliage.

"Why, Lurch?
Why'd
you do this? I thought we were friends." Jake almost flinched when something icy cold touched his wrist.

"I wanted to be on the winning side for a change." Lurch rubbed his hands together above a burning chunk of wood. He spoke as if they were chatting over a beer in front of a cozy fire instead of high on a snowy mountain in the dead of night with the embers of the cabin glowing in the darkness and two goons with Uzis trained on his heart.

"We couldn't win," Lurch said. "We never could win. The tangos had all the power. All the money. All the glory. There were a handful of us and a never-ending supply of them. I was sick of working for the losing team. And I was fucking sick of always being on
your
team. T-FLAC's golden boy. Jake Dolan, boy wonder.

"
You
got the accolades when we made a bust.
You
got the pats on the back.
You
had everyone's admiration and respect. And when we had a piss-willy little bit of glory, when we
had
a victory,
you
were the one who stepped up to the plate and took it. Oh, yeah, you always made sure the powers that be knew who was on your team, but bottom line, you were the hero.

"Nobody saw that
I
was smarter than you could ever hope to be.
Me
. Not you. I was the one smart enough to be working for both sides. Nobody knew. Not even the brilliant Tin Man." Lurch giggled.

Whoever the hell was behind him was either too cold or too nervous to be efficient.
Come on, pal. Cut the damn thing.
Jake tried to spread his wrists a little to make the job easier. The knife nicked his wrist.

"You might invent stuff, but I'm the one on the winning team now. Me. Don't you know nice guys finish last? You played by the book, you stupid asshole, and look where you are now." Lurch laughed, eyes wild with delight at his own cleverness.

"
I
came up with half the stuff you invented.
You
have the money. It isn't fair. I want my share."

The knife finally sliced through the plastic handcuffs, and the pressure on Jake's wrists immediately released. Blood pounded through his hands in a welcome rush. With a flex of his wrists he was free.

"If you were instrumental in any of the inventions going to market, then of course you should have your share," Jake told him calmly, flexing his fingers. "However, you're going to have a hard time proving anything, since all my patents are filed and dated years after your death."

When Jake and Ross had been partners and friends there had been no down time. They'd been busy fighting the good fight. It had been two years after the Musketeers' deaths when Jake came up with a small device used in a weapon's laser sight. The part, invented out of necessity, had been patented and had netted Jake a nice chunk of change. He'd taken it from there. An amusing little hobby had turned into a lucrative business.

"Who the hell will believe that?" Lurch demanded, straightening from the burning embers at his feet. "I'll have proof. I'll make sure I do." Lurch shot him a smug look. "I've got people who'll mickey the paperwork to make it look like
I
was the inventor. I'll have all the money, and I didn't have to do a damn thing other than be smarter than you!"

Jake looked at his old friend dispassionately, keeping his hands behind his back. He stepped away from the bushes to give his rescuer time to move, and heard a muttered curse behind him.

"We were never in competition, Lurch. Never. We were best friends. The four of us." Jake watched him. "Did you have Britt and Skully killed?"

"Skully knew I was still alive. He saw me after I 'died.' Britt was expendable. You always told us to be sure we tied up loose ends. I tied up loose ends. Just like you told us. I did that. Tied up loose ends. I—" He cut himself off abruptly, realizing, Jake thought, that he was losing it.

"You always got the girl. Didn't you? Always got the girl." He stalked forward, his usually graceful gait jerky with unsuppressed anger.

"I'm
glad
she cut you. Glad. We laughed about your piss-poor technique in the sack, Soledad and me. We'd lie in bed and she'd tell me how much you
loooved
her. Stupid sap. She was mine first.
Mine
."

Jake stared at him. "You were in love with Soledad, and yet you sent her to sleep with me?"

"I wanted you to trust her. I wanted you to fall for her. And you did, didn't you? I manipulated you through her. You were thinking with your dick, and I could control you like a pull toy." Lurch laughed, delighted with his cleverness.

He thumped his chest, then sneered. "I told you, remember? I told you after the bitch shot me that she was the tango's main squeeze. Remember? I told you.
I
was the tango, man. I was the tango!" Lurch roared with manic laughter.

"I was sent in to help you find
me!
Shit, that was funny. Skulking around, watching your back, when all along I was right there behind you. Oh, man. I
loved
that."

"And what did Soledad have to do with any of that? Were you in love with her? Is that it, Lurch, you were fighting for her cause?"

"Love had zip to do with it," Lurch snorted. "She was fighting for
my
cause. The almighty dollar. And the point, Jake, ol' pal of mine, was that
I
got her first. In love? Don't be ridiculous. I wasn't in
love
with her."

"Then what difference does it make?"

"Because" – Lurch came right up to him – "She. Was. Mine."

"You wasted her."

"She forgot who she belonged to. She didn't finish the job I sent her to do."

"To kill me." The scar on Jake's neck throbbed. Beyond the circle of trees and the glow of the still smoldering cabin, the night was an impenetrable inky black as the moon shifted behind the clouds. The topmost branches of the tall trees danced in the icy wind. Bright sparks danced wildly in the current.