Sting (20 page)

But either Gwen was aware of her eavesdropping or she had an unusually soft speaking voice. When Jordie had given up the pretense of napping, emerged from the bedroom and asked the marshal point-blank if she had received any word on Shaw Kinnard's condition, her answer had been “The last report, he was still in surgery.”

That was all Jordie had gotten from her, and she had no way of knowing whether or not that was the truth. “Still in surgery” could mean that he had died on the operating table and they had left him there.

The marshal was no more forthcoming about Josh. After Jordie had asked several times if there had been any further contact with him, the marshal told her that Agent Wiley had repeatedly called the number from which Josh had called him. “He hasn't answered, and he hasn't called back.”

The story of her rescue hadn't been reported until the last news broadcasts of the night. Maybe Josh, wherever he was, had learned of it by now. Perhaps he'd tried to reach her directly. With that possibility in mind, she'd asked Gwen if her cell phone had been recovered.

“It was found in Kinnard's car.”

“But I searched that car. Thoroughly.”

“Apparently he had cleverly hidden it.”

“I'd like it back, please.”

“I'm sorry, Ms. Bennett. It was taken into evidence.”

Evidence of what, Jordie wondered. Evidence against whom? Gwen hadn't specified, and Jordie was afraid to ask for fear of what the answer would be.

In any case, it was doubtful that Josh would be foolish enough to call her phone. He would know the authorities were closely monitoring it in the hope they could use an incoming call to pinpoint his location.

After consulting Agent Wiley, Gwen had permitted her to communicate with her office staff on the condition that she talk to them on speaker. Her employees became uncharacteristically emotional when they heard her voice. They expressed relief and gratitude that she was unharmed.

No one mentioned Josh, so she was spared having to address that issue with them. Nor did she provide them any details of her abduction and rescue, primarily because Gwen had instructed her not to. “Something you say innocently might impede the investigation.”

Jordie didn't see how that was possible, but she didn't argue, because she wasn't ready to talk about those thirty-six hours spent with Shaw Kinnard anyway.

She had no idea when she would be allowed to return to work and resume normal life. After talking with her staff, she felt detached from reality and drained of energy. The remaining hours of the day had seemed to stretch emptily and endlessly ahead of her.

She'd availed herself of the suite's Jacuzzi tub and had shampooed so vigorously she'd made her scalp sting. She used a spare toothbrush to scrub the caked blood—Shaw's blood—from beneath her fingernails.

Gwen had collected changes of clothing and toiletries from her house in Tobias, as Wiley had said. Jordie was glad to swap clean clothes for those hopelessly blood-stained, although she was strangely reluctant to hand them over to Gwen when she asked for them. Jordie couldn't account for why she was inclined to hug them against her chest and not let go.

Since her arrival, they'd ordered two room service meals. Jordie should've been ravenous, but she'd listlessly picked at the food. After drinking a half glass of minibar white wine, encouraged by Gwen, she'd pleaded exhaustion and gone to bed.

It surprised her now that she'd slept at all, but she supposed that her body had demanded it whether she'd desired it or not. The sleep had restored her physically, but she'd come abruptly awake with her anxiety intact.

Staring at the cold floor tiles between her bare feet, she thought how badly she dreaded tomorrow and the unwelcome surprises it could have in store. Then she realized that it
was
tomorrow. She had no alternative except to face it.

When she stepped into the bedroom, Gwen was standing backlit in the doorway that opened into the living area of the suite.

U.S. Marshal Gwen Saunders was of average height, her frame padded by fifteen pounds of extra weight, which she carried well and unselfconsciously. She wasn't unkind, just…official. She was on high alert even at four thirty in the morning. Not that Jordie could blame her. Josh's escapade hadn't inspired much trust between the Marshal's Service and the Bennett family.

Gwen asked, “Everything okay?”

“I just needed the bathroom.”

“Can I get you anything?”

“No thank you.”

“I received a text from Joe Wiley after you went to bed.”

Jordie's heart tripped.
Shaw?

“He'd like us to be at his office at nine thirty,” Gwen said, dashing her hope, and fear, of getting an update on Shaw. She went on to tell Jordie that she'd ordered a Continental breakfast to be sent up at eight. “Unless you want me to order something else.”

“No, that's fine.”

Gwen asked what time she wanted to be woken up. Jordie gave her a time. “But wake me if you receive any news.”

The marshal nodded but made no promises. “Get some more rest.” She pulled the door closed as she went out.

Jordie got back into bed, rolled onto her side, and curled into the fetal position.

What a godawful mess.

By escaping, Josh had set things into motion, but it was unfair to lay her present circumstances entirely at his feet. She was also culpable. When the FBI agents had questioned her six months ago and asked specifically about her relationship with Billy, she should have told them about that cursed trip to Costa Rica. Of course, she hadn't known then about the funds that Josh had transferred down there to facilitate Panella's getaway.

She'd also made an egregious mistake by going to that redneck bar on Friday night. When Josh was being taken away and she'd told him, “I'm done,” she should have meant it. She should have ignored the anonymous phone summons.

Instead, she had responded as years of conditioning had trained her to. Old habits weren't hard to break—they were
impossible
. Or so it seemed. Josh needed her, so she went running, this time plunging headlong into the appalling situation in which she now found herself. She was under the suspicion of the FBI.

And then there was the conundrum of Shaw Kinnard. Regarding her kidnapper, her heart and her reason were at odds. No, that was inadequate phraseology. She was foundering in an emotional maelstrom.

She'd witnessed him commit cold-blooded murder. Although he hadn't treated her cruelly, never once had he let her forget that she was his hostage and under threat of death. He had kept her frightened and unsure. Her fate had been at his whim.

The moment I laid eyes on you, your life was spared.
Truth? Or just nice words to keep her off balance? She'd been inclined to believe him. She'd wanted to badly, not as a hostage, but as a woman.

And that was the most frightening aspect of the entire experience. That was what had her caught in a whirlpool of conflicting and incomprehensible emotions.

As she'd watched the ambulance speed away with him in shackles, she should have been weak with relief. Instead, all she'd felt was despair. She'd inflicted his wound, but it pained her that he was suffering so terribly. If he lived, he would face harsh punishment for his crimes. Knowing that should have been gratifying. It wasn't.

The thought of his forbidding face didn't cause her to shudder with revulsion, as it should have. Instead, she ached to look into it again. Recalling his touch, she didn't flinch. Rather, she had a bone-deep yearning to be touched again. She didn't try to erase his kiss from her mind but avariciously clung to the memory of it, deeply regretting that he had limited himself to only one.

She should have been brimming with happiness just for being alive. And she was.

But there was no real joy in it, because of her profound sense of loss over possibilities unrealized.

J
osh anxiously awaited daybreak.

He sat at the kitchen table, fiddling with a box of toothpicks, nearly jumping out of his skin at every sound. He was reminded of a popular bumper sticker from a few years back:
YOU'D BE PARANOID TOO IF EVERYBODY WAS AFTER YOU
.

The darkness made him jittery, but he was afraid to turn on the lights, now even more so than before. A light had brought about Shaw Kinnard's capture. That was just one of the surprising tidbits that had been on the late newscasts.

According to the report, a fisherman had spotted light inside a building that had been abandoned for years. He had alerted local authorities to it, and that had led to Jordie's rescue and her abductor's arrest.

Good fortune for her. Disaster for the perpetrator.

Since Josh fell into the latter category, he'd taken the lesson to heart, switched off the TV immediately, and had kept every light off since. Total darkness was safer, but hell on his nerves. Throughout the wee hours, he'd crept from window to window of the house, afraid that when he looked outside he would see armed men in uniforms sneaking up on him, surrounding the house, spreading a net he couldn't escape.

He wasn't that good with guns, but he kept a loaded pistol within reach on the table next to the box of toothpicks. He was glad he'd planned ahead and had left the gun here in the house along with the frozen TV dinners and stocked pantry. It gave him peace of mind. With it close at hand, he didn't feel so naked and exposed.

He detested being naked and exposed. Even in his own shower. Because occasionally, as much as he tried to avoid it, he would accidentally catch a glimpse of himself in the bathroom mirror and see his grotesque scars.

The passage of time had faded them. They were no longer red and pink but slick and white and shiny, like repulsive worms crisscrossing his back. He remembered being told how lucky he was that his clothing would conceal them. Even Jordie had told him that once.

“Nobody will ever know they're there, Josh.”

He had yelled at her that
he
knew they were there.

That indisputable fact had shut her up. She'd never tried that platitude on him again.

Frustrated over the reminder of his deformity, he knocked the box of toothpicks over the edge of the table. They spilled onto the floor. Still feeling restless, he reached for one of his cell phones and bounced it in his palm. He'd removed the battery from the one he'd used to call Joe Wiley. This was a new phone, new battery, and it was charged.

He was tempted to call Wiley again, ask him if what they'd reported on TV about Jordie was true and that she really had come through her ordeal unharmed. He also wondered if Wiley had asked her about Costa Rica yet.

She would probably be mad at him for telling the FBI agent about her and Panella's little getaway. From the day she'd returned from Central America, the junket had been a closed subject. Taboo. Off-limits. Josh's tentative inquires about it had been met with frigid silence. She was probably still touchy on the topic.

But he'd had to give Wiley something last night, hadn't he? Would Jordie rather have remained at the mercy of Shaw Kinnard, hardened criminal? They'd said on TV that he had been “gravely wounded,” but they hadn't disclosed the nature of his injury or how he'd sustained it.

Josh hoped he'd died.

He knelt, gathered up the toothpicks by feel, and replaced them in the box. Then he made another circuit of the ground floor of the house, tiptoeing through the dark rooms, taking peeps out the windows. No need to check the second floor. He'd done so twice.

Outside, nothing was moving. He was okay.

But the suspense to know about Jordie was killing him. Yielding to temptation, he returned to the kitchen, picked up the phone, and tapped in Joe Wiley's number. After three rings, the agent answered, sounding groggy, as though the call had woken him up.

“I heard about Jordie. Is she really all right?”

“Hi, Josh. I wondered when you'd break down and call me. I had a bet going with my wife that you—”

“
Is
she?”

“She's fine. But why don't you come see for yourself? I'll come get you, drive you straight over to her.”

“Is her kidnapper dead?”

“Last I heard, no. But you're not the only one who hopes he'll die.”

Josh recognized that statement as a dangled carrot. Nevertheless, he couldn't resist it. “I'm sure Jordie does. Did he do something to her? Hurt her?”

“She says no. But I wasn't referring to her. I talked to Billy Panella tonight.”

Josh snorted. “Liar.”

“A few hours ago.”

“Liar!”

“Have you ever known me to lie to you, Josh? Think about it. I've always leveled with you even when I didn't want to.”

“Panella's in South America.”

“Possibly, but I brought him up to speed on what's going on here.”

“You're just trying to scare me.”

“You decide if you should be scared or not.”

“What's that mean?”

“When I told Panella that Kinnard was in custody and that Jordie was alive and well, he said the F word. And the tirade didn't stop there. I had to look up some of the words.”

“That's not scary,” Josh said. “He always says the F word when he's mad, and he was mad because his plot to kill Jordie failed.”

“This time. I figure he'll try again, because…well, here's the thing, Josh. I sorta let it slip that you were once again trading his secrets to get on our good side.”

“Oh, Jesus.”

“Are you scared yet? You've got good reason to be.”

Josh began to blubber.

“Be smart, Josh. Tell me where you are.”

Shaw resented sleep. He considered it a waste of time and disliked the vulnerability that necessarily accompanied it. He slept only when he had to and never for more than a few hours.

But he hadn't been conscious for long before wishing he could slip back into oblivion. Any given morning a hospital was a busy place, but it seemed that everybody on staff at this one had some business in his room.

Probably they just wanted to take a gander at the man handcuffed to his bed.

His vitals were taken. Twice. His blood was drawn. At least a quart. His floor was mopped. The guy seemed to delight in banging the mop into all four wheels of his bed. His IV was checked a dozen times by a dozen different people. His dressing was changed. The row of staples, like a miniature railroad track holding him together, was probed to test its durability. His piss output was measured and recorded before the bag was replaced.

Shortly after that humiliation, a male nurse showed up to give him a bed bath. He bent Shaw like a pretzel, causing him to swear viciously. “Where'd you get your training? Guantanamo?”

The next guy who breezed in was dressed in blue scrubs. “Remember me?”

“No.”

“Didn't think you would.” Skinny and spry, he introduced himself as the surgeon who'd worked on him the day before. “We did several X-rays and scans, didn't find any organ damage. Your large intestine was missed by this much.” He left a half inch between his thumb and index finger. “You also got by without a major blood vessel being cut. The wound was nasty, getting infected. I cleaned it out. Could have been a lot worse.”

Shaw said, “What's the bad news?”

“Your oblique was sliced through like a steak. Using a dull knife. Had to take lots of stitches, layers of them, starting deep inside and working out. So it's gonna be sore for a while. Take it easy. No heavy lifting. No strenuous exercise.”

He seemed to remember the restraints keeping Shaw secured to the bed, and looked like he wished he could take back that last bit. He continued briskly. “You were given a tetanus shot. If you start running a fever, get checked for infection. We're giving you IV antibiotics, and you'll leave here with a butt-load of them plus capsules to last several weeks. Take them till they run out. Any questions?”

“When will the staples be removed?”

“Tomorrow if all is looking good. They're only a safety net. A physical therapist will get you up today, start you moving around.”

Shaw rattled the handcuffs.

“They've stationed a deputy outside the room,” the surgeon said. “He'll be on hand to…assist.”

“When can we pull that thing out of my dick?”

The surgeon gave a lopsided grin. “I'll send somebody in. But if you can't pee on your own, back in it goes.”

“Then I'll make damn sure I pee on my own.”

“Good luck to you.”

He breezed out. Fifteen seconds later, a uniformed man stalked in.

Shaw rested his head on his pillow and closed his eyes.

“Morning.”

Shaw didn't return the greeting, but the officer didn't take the hint. Shaw sensed him advancing into the room, stopping at the foot of the bed, looking down on him.“I rode in the ambulance with you yesterday, but you were pretty out of it. Clint Morrow, Terrebonne Parish—”

“I remember you,” Shaw said. “The man who tracked me down.”

“Wasn't much of my doing. I got a good lead.”

“What was a fisherman doing in a swamp during a thunderstorm? Let me guess. Some crazy Cajun.”

“Takes all kinds.”

“My luck,” Shaw muttered.

After a brief pause, Morrow asked how he was feeling.

“How do I look?”

“Like shit.”

“That pretty much covers it.”

The deputy waited a beat, then got down to business. “I need you to answer some questions.”

Shaw raised his head, opened one eye, and took a look around the room. “I don't see a lawyer.” He closed his eye and returned his head to the pillow.

Undeterred, Morrow began relating facts that Shaw already knew about the fatal shooting of Mickey Bolden. “Do you want to comment on any of that, Mr. Kinnard?”

“Still don't see a lawyer. But if you stick around long enough, you might get to watch them remove my catheter.”

“When did you become acquainted with Bolden?”

He asked a few dozen questions. Shaw responded with sighs, yawns, and once by asking if Morrow would mind scratching an itch for him. “It's a lot to ask, I know, but it was washed during my sponge bath.”

“Okay, talk smart,” Morrow said. “Sooner or later you'll realize that it's in your best interest to cooperate.”

“No, it's in
your
best interest for me to cooperate.” Looking beyond him, Shaw added, “Unless I miss my guess, she's here to run you out.”

Morrow turned to the nurse who'd entered the room. “I'm sorry, but your ten minutes are up,” she told him. “You can come back this afternoon between one and three.”

Shaw said, “That is if you have absolutely nothing better to do between one and three, because I'm not talking to you without a lawyer present.”

“Actually I do have something better to do. Agent Joe Wiley—you remember him?”

“Prince of a guy.”

“He invited me to sit in when they question Ms. Bennett. You…” He looked pointedly at Shaw's cuffed hands. “You'll keep.” He put on his hat and brushed the brim of it with his index finger. “Ma'am,” he said to the nurse and started for the door.

“Wait a minute.” Shaw tried to sit up but was able only to lever himself onto his elbows. “Is Josh Bennett still at large?” Seeing the deputy's hesitation, Shaw said, “His capture wouldn't be kept secret. It'll have been on the news. I can ask her,” he added, indicating the nurse, “or you can just tell me.”

Morrow said, “Still at large.”

“And the feds think his sister can lead them to him?” He made a scoffing sound. “Wish them luck.”

Morrow came back to the bed. “Why do you say that?”

Shaw gauged the deputy's apparent interest, then said to the nurse, “Beat it.”

Her sizable chest swelled with indignation. “I beg your pardon?”

Shaw fixed his coldest, most intimidating stare on her. She gathered her dignity and marched out. He returned his attention to Morrow. “Jordie Bennett doesn't know anything. Not about her brother. Not about Panella.”

“That's what she told
you
.”

“I was trying to squeeze more money out of the deal. I grilled her under pain of death. I put her through hell. Didn't she tell Wiley all this?”

“She alluded to your death threats and persistence. But there were gaps in her story that Wiley wants filled.”

“What kind of gaps?”

The nurse reappeared, bringing with her a staff supervisor and the deputy guarding his room. The guard said, “Sorry, Sergeant Morrow. They're kicking you out.”

Morrow said to Shaw, “I'll be back later.”

“Wait a goddamn minute! These gaps in Jordie's statement. Are they regarding her brother? Panella? What?”

“Probably all of the above. You included.”

“If she'd known anything about Panella or her brother, she would've told me.”

“Or stabbed you.” Morrow held Shaw's gaze for several seconds, then the corner of his mouth hiked up in a quasismile. “Kinda makes you wonder who rooked who, doesn't it?”

He turned to go. The people grouped in the open doorway parted for him. In a voice too low to hear, he said something to the deputy, then walked away. The others dispersed. The nurse Shaw had insulted shot him a spiteful look and pulled the door partially shut.

As he resettled on the hard pillow, his thoughts swirled around Jordie, star of his drug-inspired, X-rated dreams, sister of a criminal, object of Billy Panella's affection.

Although she'd denied that, it was logical to assume. Panella had the hots for her, she'd spurned him, and he—

Or
had
she spurned him?

Morrow hinted that Shaw had been a chump to trust her. Obviously the FBI doubted her trustworthiness. She'd left gaps in the account she'd given Joe Wiley, and it was bedeviling Shaw to wonder what they were.