Off the Edge (The Associates) (22 page)

“Put on your jeans, a dark shirt, and sneakers. Now,” he said. She couldn’t believe how calm he was. “What’s Rolly’s full name?”

“Jerry Lee Drucker.” She pulled on her clothes as Devilwell took out a phone and called somebody, mumbling something about Jerry Lee Drucker and Jazzman. She was glad for the icy cool Devilwell. He was the ally she needed now. He would kill.

Another thought hit her and she spun around. “The Shinsurins are in on it.”

“Most likely.”

Rajini.

She shoved on a shoe, mind whirling at the betrayal. She knew he was right. It was then she caught sight of his bare feet—they were red, crusted with something dark. “Oh, my God! Your feet!”

“It’s nothing. Go. Other shoe.”

She slammed on her other shoe. “All this time I’ve been like a bird in a cage. Like a stupid singing fool.”

“Not like a stupid singing fool. Like a survivor.”

“A survivor who sings cornpone songs.” She stood.

“Well, there’s that.”

She hauled off to hit him. He caught her arm and yanked her up. The air felt thick and wild—at least to her. “Put everything out of your mind but doing what I say,” he said calmly. He shoved her pack at her. There was still room in it, so she nestled Amy in and slung it over her shoulders. “Charlie’s not dead. I know you think so, but he’s not.”

“Ready?” Like he didn’t believe it.

A sound at the front—the doorknob jiggling, followed by the clink of keys.

With lightning speed, Macmillan moved across the room, shoved a chair under the knob, then grabbed her hand and pulled her out onto the porch, into the steamy heat of the night.

“Jump onto my back. Now.”

He turned and offered his back. She did as he asked, wrapping her arms around his neck and her legs around his middle.

A hiss of pain. “Avoid the ribs if possible.”

She shifted her legs down. “Are you hurt?”

“Hold on. I’m climbing sideways.”

She held on, trying not to look down as he climbed over the railing. A little wall jutted out between porches; she and Sirikit next door used to lean over and talk to each other, but she’d never imagined traversing it. She clutched him harder as he straddled the wall. He grasped the railings on both sides before he swung them all the way over.

A pounding from the inside of her room. Trying to get in.

“Crap,” she said as he scooted down and swung around the wall to the next porch, then to the next. Like the whole hotel was a jungle gym.

Sweat poured off her face, her palms. “You’re getting slippery,” she said.

“Just hold on,” he said, moving like a monkey to the next porch.

“Where are we going?”

“The Sawadee Palace,” he panted, moving to the next porch. “I hear it’s excellent. I understand there’s not a leg iron in the place.”

A gunshot blasted out. The sound was so loud, it almost rocked her right off his back.

“Ignore it,” he whispered.

A man screamed, then moaned. A chorus of street dogs set up barking.

“Hellbuckets.” She clutched on harder.

“We’re okay.” He kept on. Senseless, muffled words came from the direction of her patio. He got them around to the next patio.

“Let’s go in and run out the hall,” she said.

“Bad idea.” He straddled the next wall.

Bang
. This bullet hit nearby. Maxwell sucked in a breath.

“They’re shooting at us!”

“Not to kill. They’re forcing us in.”

“Maxwell! You’re bleeding!”

He examined his arm when they got to the other side. “Ricochet spray. Skin deep.” He climbed over the rail and let her off on a porch. She felt grateful for the solid surface. “Stay back.” Maxwell leaned out and shot back.

“They know where we are, now.” She gave him her gun and he tucked it into his waistband.

“That’s why we have to go down. They won’t expect it.”

“It’s three stories!”

“Just to the porch below.”

“How?” The building’s V-shape made going down as hard as going up.

“I’ll jump down. All you have to do is lower yourself and I’ll pull you in.”

Maxwell hopped back to the outside of the rail and climbed down, so that he hung by his fingertips from the concrete slab that composed the floor of the porch. He began to swing, and then he disappeared. She heard the thud of his landing, then a voice. “Hang down and I’ll grab you. Hurry.”

She scrambled over the rail and paused, fixated on the rocks and bushes below. A person would die, falling that far. And her hands were so sweaty!

“Hang down,” Maxwell said. “You can do this. I’ll grab your legs.”

She could hear voices inside over the neighborhood dogs. Somebody pounding at the door. Other voices even nearer. Somebody had been sleeping in there. She crouched on the outside of the porch railing.

Shouts in Thai. A crash.

She wiped her hands on her shirt, then crouched on the outside of the bars and lowered her legs. She felt Maxwell’s arms close around her knees. “All the way down,” he said.

A deep voice. “Oh, no, you don’t.”

She jerked her gaze up to meet Rolly’s angry eyes. He leaned over the railing. She gasped, grip frozen on the bars.

“Emmaline.” His warning tone. Her stomach clenched and curdled as he clapped his hands around her wrists, fingers like iron vices.

“No!”

“Yes,” he growled, face hard under his dark flat-top.

She began to struggle, but guards appeared on either side of him. They grabbed her arms and started pulling her up, right out of Maxwell’s grip.

“No!” She twisted and squirmed. “Maxwell! No!” They pulled her all the way over the rail and onto the porch. Rolly looped an arm around her neck.

Movement out of the corner of her eye. She saw fingertips on the edge of the slab.

Maxwell.

Strong hands clamped the railing. Forearms bulged with muscles as Maxwell’s head appeared. He was heaving himself up.

One of the guards leveled a gun at him.

“Maxwell, watch out!” she screamed, trying to get at the guard.

“Do it,” Rolly said.

He aimed right at Maxwell’s head.

And shot.

Maxwell disappeared.

A crash below.

She stared at the place his hands had been, dizzy with shock. Maxwell. Gone. Shot. She felt like the whole world got turned upside down and shaken out.

She tried to twist away from Rolly, who hauled her up to his angular face, fingers gripping her upper arms, lips curled, eyes angry. He pinned her to the rough, nubby patio wall. She breathed in the stink of his acrid sweat—booze sweat, she used to call it. She’d forgotten about that smell. He’d put on a lot of muscle in prison. And she couldn’t move.

Maxwell gone. Dead.

“This could have been so much easier,” he whispered, rage and pain oozing out of him. “Come on, now.”

“Hell, no,” she whispered.

A wild look passed across his face and he tightened his grip. “You’re my wife, Emmaline.” Pain in Rolly’s eyes. He would hurt her now. She felt the old fear creeping its icy fingers over her. “You’re my wife, Emmaline.”

Futilely she kicked at him—she needed to get away and get to Maxwell, if only just to touch him one last time. Maybe he hadn’t died instantly. He’d be alone. Afraid.

Tears fell from her eyes as Rolly wrapped both hands around her neck. She stopped kicking and clawed at his fingers as he dragged her inside and through the dark blur of somebody’s room. She stumbled along, choking.

They emerged into the bright hallway and moved clumsily through the jumble of people. She strained for air as they entered the elevator—she and Harken and two guards. And Rolly.

“Deal with her hands,” Rolly said, releasing her. She coughed and sputtered, and in a flash she was pinned to the elevator wall, cheek rubbing against the carpeted panel, her hands bound behind her back with something sharp and cutting.

She stayed there, eyes squinched shut, tears flowing as the elevator rose.

Maxwell.
Gone. You didn’t survive being shot in the head and falling three stories.

If only she’d been braver. If only she’d hurried when he’d asked her to. She’d frozen instead.

She vowed never to freeze again.

Rolly dragged her into a room, shut the door behind them, and pushed her up against it, choking her again. “You’re wearing black. I like you in white. First thing, we’re going to put you in white.” Then he claimed her mouth in a suffocating, stinking kiss.

She bit his lip. He jerked away and she kicked him in the balls—and connected. He stumbled away and she tried to open the door with her hands behind her back. She’d escape or die. She’d never freeze for him again. Ever!

He grabbed her hair and threw her to the floor. Without her hands to break her fall, she fell on her shoulder and banged her head—hard.

He turned her onto her back and placed his boot on her chest, pressing until she could barely breathe, until her shoulders felt squished behind her. He had a hammer.

“Go ahead, kill me,” she said.

“That’s not exactly what I had in mind, Emmaline.”

“Emmaline’s gone. I’m Laney.”

He just frowned.

“I’ll kill you,” she said. “I’ll never stop trying.”

“You’ll stop trying,” he said calmly. “You’ll see.”

Laney’s heart banged in her chest. He was going to do something with the hammer. Maybe break her hands. Or her feet? His cock was hard in his pants. She fought back the urge to beg him for leniency. Never again.

Just then there was a knock at the door.

“What?” He barked, not taking his eyes from her.

“It’s important.” Harken’s voice.

“Better be.”

Harken came in and handed Rolly a phone.

“Yeah,” Rolly said into it, eyes roaming up and down her body. He frowned, then a slow smile spread over his face. “Decisions, decisions,” Rolly said. “Seems there’s a body on the hotel grounds that needs to be gone before daybreak. What should we do? Throw it to the dogs, or put it in the trash?”

She glared, fighting back a heaving sob.

Rolly watched her. She knew what he was looking for—a kind of death in her eyes. The point where she stopped fighting. Once upon a time she would have crumbled for him, just in the interest of self-preservation. She realized with some surprise that now it wasn’t even an option. She’d go down fighting. She’d fight him to the death. She’d do it for herself—and for Maxwell.

Rolly flicked his gaze away, listening to the caller. “Handle it,” he said. “You don’t want me to have to come out there.”

She bit back the tears. She hadn’t known Maxwell that long, but the way they fit together—it felt ancient, like they’d been connected for eons, like showing up in each other’s lives was just the tip of things.

He’d tried to rescue her, and now he was dead.

Rolly handed the phone back to Harken, who pocketed it.

“Leave us.”

Harken left.

Rolly picked up the hammer. “Now, where were we?”

Macmillan awoke to the feel of his shoulders being wrenched clear out of their sockets and excruciating pain in his toes as he was dragged over what felt like cut glass. He groaned.

“You awake, buddy?” Douglas. “Can you walk?”

Macmillan tried to speak as Fedor and Douglas let him go. He gripped Fedor’s arm, swaying.

He straightened his glasses. They were in the alley behind the Des Roses pool, heading for the street. “Laney,” he grated.

Fedor looped his arm around his shoulders. “Come on.”

“I have to get back there.”

“You can’t,” Douglas said. “Place is full of muscle. Shinsurin’s and Jazzman’s both. How do you feel? Anything broken?”

“Nah.” Macmillan’s thoughts raced back to the scene on the porch. He’d let go of the rail just as soon as he saw the tendons in the back of the guard’s hand activate, escaping the bullet by milliseconds. He hadn’t counted on blacking out. He’d meant to slip back in.

“How long was I out?”

“Minute or two,” Douglas said. “Good job, by the way. You did it—you identified Jazzman. Jerry Lee Drucker. We’ve got Associates assembling. Don’t worry about Laney, we’re taking him down.”

“Did you aim for that pergola?” Fedor asked, urging him onward. “Those fucking vines broke your fall.”

“You were there?”

“We heard the gunfire,” Douglas said. “Figured you were involved.”

They came to the corner of the alley.

“Hold up,” Fedor muttered. He moved to the end of the alley, checking the street.

Macmillan tried to focus through the pain.
Keep it together,
he told himself. “I have to get back in there.”

“I can’t let you do that. We’ll draw him out and take him the right way,” Douglas said. “Look at me.”

Macmillan looked at him.

Douglas pulled up his eyelids, one after another. “You have a concussion. You’ll feel more stable in a bit. But your feet—bare feet—”

“Give me your piece. I have to get her out of there,” Macmillan said.

“Don’t be an idiot.” Douglas grabbed his shirt. “Jazzman isn’t going to kill your girl. Look what he went through to keep her on ice. We need her right where she is, occupying his attention.”

“I have to—”

“No!” Douglas shook him, face close enough to kiss him. “You busted open his identity, Macmillan. You did it—you just saved a shitload of lives. Do you want to jeopardize that? This situation couldn’t be more perfect—Rolly will be focused on her.”

“No—”

“Yes,” Douglas barked. “We’re almost there. You remember what you always say? Anybody can carry out a plan when things go right. We Associates have the balls to stay the course when things go to hell.”

Things were definitely going to hell.

“We almost have it,” Douglas said. “We’ll win.”

Maybe. But Macmillan felt like he was still back in that dark jungle, unable to get to the people he loved. All he could see was the fear in Laney’s eyes when she talked about Rolly. And now Rolly had her. He tried to shake out of Douglas’s grip.

“Don’t make me fight you,” Douglas growled. “This is my mission and I won’t let you fuck it up, got it?”

“Yut! Aao, yut!
Stop!” Guards were pouring down the alley from the other direction.