Moonrise (23 page)

He didn’t like the surge of emotion that shot through her voice. Jealousy, he thought absently. He never thought he’d waste his time with something as petty as jealousy.

“I don’t trust anyone, Annie,” he murmured. “We’re forced to trust Martin, at least a little bit, but I don’t like it. The first thing I learned in this business was that anyone could be your enemy. For what it’s worth, I still think we can count on Martin when the chips are down. It was most likely Win’s confederates. The people that have been after us all along.”

“I thought everyone was after us,” she said dully.

“True enough.” He sipped his tea. There was no sugar, no milk to make it more palatable, and he would have sold his mother for a shot of whiskey. But his mother was already dead. “But some are more determined than others. The people who worked with Win, betrayed Win, want us out of the way. We ask too many questions, we cause too much trouble. They’d been trying to kill me for a while.
The moment you came after me, you put yourself in the line of fire as well. They want us both dead. And Carew wouldn’t be likely to shed any tears.”

“How would they know where we are?”

“They know everything, Annie. That’s why we’ve kept moving.”

“So why are we here? A sentimental pilgrimage to the auld sod?”

The sarcasm strengthened her voice, and he wanted, oddly enough, to smile. “Not likely, Annie. I try to keep my visits to a bare minimum. Unfortunately, your father had a particular fondness for the Irish. He used Northern Ireland as one of his favorite recruiting centers.”

“Recruiting centers?”

“Don’t pretend you’ve forgotten, Annie. Your father hired killers. He trained them, made them his creatures, and then sent them out into the world to do his bidding. He found the Irish particularly adept at that sort of work. It amused him that such a charming race could be so savage.”

“Amused him?” she echoed faintly.

“Your father had an odd sense of humor.”

“Is this where he found you?”

He should have known. He had opened up the subject on purpose, waiting for her questions.
Waiting for the most important question of all.

“Not exactly. I was in Highroad Prison. On the thirty-fourth day of a hunger strike, just about ready to die.”

“Why?”

“It seemed like the thing to do at the time,” he said lightly.

“I mean, why were you in prison?”

“I’d set a bomb off in a pub when I was seventeen. It killed a great many people, I’m afraid. I started young in my life’s work.”

She stared at him. “And what happened?”

“Your father thought I showed great promise, so he managed to extract me from a place few Irishmen ever leave. I was declared dead, and my body was given over for burial. He brought me to the States and turned me into a good old boy.” His voice slipped into the cool Texas drawl effortlessly.

“This is crazy,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t believe you.”

“Look around you, Annie. Believe it.”

She rose, pushing back from the table, his black shirt hanging from her shoulders, flapping around her narrow torso. He wanted to reach out and pull that shirt, pull her close against him. He didn’t move. “What did you do with the body?” she asked in a low voice.

“You mean bodies, don’t you? There was another
one outside. I dumped them both in the garden shed out back. Useful things, garden sheds. Almost every house in Britain and Ireland has one.”

“Stop it!” she said with a shudder. “I don’t want to hear any more.”

“Don’t you want to ask me something, Annie?” he said, hating himself. Pushing himself. And her.

“No.”

“Even if I promise to tell you the truth this time?”

“No!” she cried, the passion in her voice leaving no doubt that she knew what he was asking. She started past him, and suddenly he rose, blocking her way.

“Go ahead and ask, love,” he whispered, letting the Irish back into his voice. “Ask me and I’ll tell you anything you want. Do anything you want.”

“Would you go to hell?” she demanded fiercely.

“Been there. Done that,” he murmured.

“Would you tell me who killed my father?”

“Yes.”

She didn’t move, and he waited for the words that would bring everything crashing down.

“Would you take me to bed?”

He stared down at her. At the pale, soft
mouth, the dark, shock-filled eyes. She was weak, vulnerable, easily shattered. She didn’t know who she was or what she wanted, and to touch her now would be to damn his soul to eternal hell.

But then, he already knew he had no other alternative.

“Yes,” he said. And catching the lapels of the shirt, he drew her toward him.

A
nnie had no idea where those words had come from. Her conscious mind seemed to have shattered, vanished. She looked up at him, into his stranger’s face, and her mind went numb. And her heart spoke.

He’d given her his shirt, and he was wearing only a dark blue T-shirt and jeans. She didn’t remember seeing those clothes before, and absently she wondered where they’d come from. She could see a dark, wet stain on the shirt, and she knew it was blood. She shuddered.

“What do you want from me, James?” she asked in a raw voice. “Is that even your name? James McKinley? It doesn’t seem to fit you anymore.”

“It’ll do,” he said. “It’s mine now.” His hands gripped the lapels of the shirt that wrapped around her, holding her there, imprisoned, making no effort to move closer.

“What do you want from me, James?” she asked again.

A faint, derisive smile curved his mouth. “I want you out of this. I want you safe and happy, living in suburbia, with an unimaginative yuppie husband, fat babies, and no worries except about your cholesterol. I want you twenty pounds overweight, worried about daycare and mortgages. I want you to have a real life.”

She didn’t say anything for a moment. “I could go back home,” she said. “I could marry Martin.”

“No!” His protest was violent. “It’s too late for that. You’re in too deep. And Martin …”

“What’s wrong with Martin?” she demanded when he stopped in mid-sentence.

“Martin is one of us.”

“One of us?”

“He knows how to kill, Annie. You don’t need a killer in your life.”

She accepted his lack of jealousy with detachment and her own knowledge. Despite what he said, she knew Martin. Martin wouldn’t kill. Martin was safety. She knew that deep in her heart. Even as she knew she no longer wanted safety.

“What do we do now?” she asked.

“We stay put for the time being. Keep an eye out for more intruders. Where one came,
others will follow, but it wouldn’t do us any good to run. They’ll find us. We stay here and try to find where the picture is. He brought it here, Annie, but for the life of me I can’t imagine why. But we’ll find it. And maybe we’ll find some answers as well.”

“I don’t mean that,” Annie said in a deceptively tranquil voice. “I mean, what do we do
now
? At this very minute?”

She could feel the tension, the heat, the adrenaline running through him. She was learning to read him despite the cool exterior he presented. She could feel his need, and it matched hers.

He dropped the lapels of the shirt and took a step away from her. “You try to get some sleep,” he said in his distant voice. “I’ll keep an eye out—”

“I’ve been sleeping for days,” she said in a low, fierce voice. “I’ve lost count of them. You’ve been drugging me, haven’t you? Filling me with some sort of filthy stuff to keep me out of it. How could you do that?”

“I had everything I needed at the trailer,” he replied, willfully misunderstanding her. “Win always saw that we were provided with the newest gadgets, the best in technology. Did you think I wouldn’t take advantage of anything I had?”

“How could you do something like that to
me? I saw the marks on my arm—you used a needle, didn’t you? How do you think my father would have reacted if he’d known you’d used those weapons against me?”

“He wouldn’t have given a shit.” James moved closer for a brief, dangerous moment. “There’s nothing I’m not capable of doing, Annie. Remember that.”

She thought back to the man lying in the hallway, the pool of blood seeping beneath him, and she shivered.

“Go to bed,” he said again, trying to dismiss her. “If you need something to help you sleep, I’m sure I can find some more of the stuff I was giving you—”

She hit him. She slapped him across the face so hard that his head whipped back, so hard that her hand felt numb, and the shirt draped around her shoulders fell to the floor.

She tensed, waiting for him to touch her. But he simply smiled crookedly. “Go to bed, Annie,” he said, patient as ever.

She knew where her anger came from. From the lies, from the tricks, from the fear. She knew what she was going to do with it. “That’s what I had in mind,” she said, a thread of fury running through her voice. “With you.”

She reached up and touched the harsh imprint of her hand on his face. He hadn’t
shaved recently, and the roughness of his stubble pricked her hand.

Don’t
, a voice in her head warned her, a voice that sounded eerily like Martin’s.
There’ll be no going back.

But James simply looked down at her, unmoving, allowing her touch. “I wouldn’t if I were you,” he said in a rough voice. “You’re out of your league. I won’t give you a transcendent roll in the hay and a slap on the butt when we’re finished. We wouldn’t do it in the dark, safe and polite, you in your nightie, beneath the covers and me the perfect gentleman.”

“What would you do?” The words were barely audible.

He heard them. “I’d take everything from you—your heart, your soul. Maybe even your life. Run away from me, Annie. I’ll be the death of you.”

There was no way she could go. She simply looked up at him, stricken, pleading, needing. Unwilling to back down, to run away, as her instincts warned her to. Her fingers stroked his lean, stubbled cheek as she looked into his eyes with complete fearlessness.

“Take me, then,” she whispered.

He didn’t kiss her. She knew he wouldn’t, and she didn’t seek his mouth. He simply slid his hands around her and lifted her up, almost
effortlessly. She hadn’t realized how strong he was. She hadn’t realized a great many things about him, and yet she was putting herself at his mercy.

She thought he would carry her into the bedroom. He didn’t. He settled her body against his, draping her long legs around his narrow hips, oddly gentle with her wounded arm. She could feel his erection, something that astonished her. She still couldn’t quite believe he wanted her. That this time he would take her.

This time she wasn’t giving him any choice. She closed her eyes, threading her arms around his neck, ignoring the pain in her rudely bandaged arm, trying to move closer still, pressing her breasts against his chest.

The kitchen was cold and dark, and she shivered. He unfastened her bra, and it fell free. His mouth was at her ear, beneath her fall of hair, and his breath was moist and hot.

“Does killing turn you on, Annie?” he whispered, taunting. “Did it excite you to see someone die? To know that he’s dead because he tried to hurt you?”

She tried to pull away from him, appalled. But he held her against him, mocking, deriding. “Mary Margaret used to come when she killed someone. Did you know that women
could do that? Maybe you’re more like your father than I thought.”

She was struggling in earnest now, desperate to get away from his cold, eerie voice, an odd mixture of Texas and Ireland. The eyes of death in a face of love. “Let me go,” she said in a tight, angry voice, pushing him, ignoring the pain in her arm.

“I never thought about it, but you might have untapped talents.” He ignored her struggles. “Win never killed, but he knew more about delivering death than anyone I’ve ever met. Maybe you’ve inherited his gift.”

“Stop it,” she cried, shoving him.

He let her go abruptly, setting her back down on the linoleum floor and moving out of her reach.

“Trust me, Annie, fucking a killer is highly overrated. You didn’t get off with Martin, did you?” He turned his back on her, dismissing her. “Go away, Annie. Go back to your little bedroom and thank God, if you happen to believe in him, that I let you escape.”

She didn’t move. “How do you know we’ll be safe? What if someone else comes after us tonight?”

“I’ll kill them too.” He waited, but she didn’t move, struggling between instinct and fear.

“Get the hell out of here!” he shouted in sudden fury, still not turning.

She left the kitchen. The hall was dark, the floor damp from a fresh scrubbing, and she shuddered as she walked, barefoot, where a man had died.

The bare lightbulb still shone from her tiny room, illuminating the narrow bed. She pulled the string, plunging the room into sullen darkness once more. And then she left, moving toward the other room.

It wasn’t much larger, and the furnishings were even more sparse. Just a big mattress on the dusty floor, an old flowered sheet on the bottom, a grimy-looking duvet on the top.

She stripped off the rest of her clothes, folded them neatly, and stacked them in the corner. Then she lay down beneath the duvet, shivering in the chill night air.

She wouldn’t have thought she would sleep. Her heart was pounding wildly in her chest; her fast-fleeting sense screamed that she was crazy. She ignored the shrill cries. She was here, naked, in his bed. There was no other reasonable place to be. It was that complicated, and that simple.

When she opened her eyes again, the first murky light of dawn was penetrating the room. She wasn’t alone.

James sat at the edge of the mattress, watching her out of brooding eyes. “You never listen, do you?” he said in a harsh whisper.

She wanted to deny it, but she couldn’t say a word. He reached for the thin comforter, pulling it away from her naked body in the damp morning air. There was anger and something else in his cold blue eyes.

“Fuck it,” he said, more to himself than to her. “I’ve killed for you. I’ve earned you.” And he leaned over her, blotting out the light.