Ultimate Prey (Book 3 Ultimate CORE) (CORE Series) (48 page)

He turned and faced the house. Ryan and Lola continued to work on the porch, while John and Hudson periodically stepped out from the bushes lining the yard. They would be prepared for Steven, but would it be enough?

It had to be.

Steven could
not
survive this. Barney was right. Steven was like the Komodo dragon. If they didn’t stop him now, he would keep coming for them, keep infecting them with fear and following them around until he made sure they were dead. And Ian refused to live in fear. He also refused to involve the authorities. While his connections would help wipe away the criminal acts his men had done in order to help save him and Cami, neither the Feds nor the police, would do for them what he planned to do to Steven.

Yes, he was going to end this his way.

He was nobody’s fucking prey.

Chapter 18

Everglade City, Florida

Friday, 8:37 p.m. Eastern Standard Time

STEVEN STOPPED ZACK when they reached the mangroves near Ian’s rental house, then pulled the night vision monocular from his pack.

“Are we close?” Zack set the half-empty five-gallon gas can he’d stolen from a boat dock onto the ground.

Steven looked through the monocular and saw nothing but skeletal tree roots and the demon eyes of raccoons. After having hiked through this area, only to wait in the dark for Ian and Cami to fall asleep, he remembered it well. He lowered the monocular, then checked his compass. “The house is beyond the mangroves to the west. Should take us another ten minutes.” He raised the monocular and looked at Zack’s legs. “Can you make it?”

“Yeah, but I don’t know if I can walk the two and a half miles back to town.”

“You might not have to. If Ian’s at the house, I guarantee he didn’t walk there. We’ll steal his car and then look for your boat. If we can’t find it, we can drive to Siesta Key.”

“That works, but, damn, I really want my boat back.”

He’d prefer the boat, as well, only there were too many boat docks and slips, either clustered or scattered along the shore and in the varying channels throughout Everglade City. Ian could have docked Zack’s boat anywhere.

After stumbling onto shore this morning, and listening to Zack’s plans for the future—plans that had included him—he’d considered taking their partnership seriously. And why not? If he didn’t like the direction Zack was taking, or his boss, Smitty, he’d go his own way once Smitty’s doctor fixed his arm. As for the boat… While he’d make an effort to find it, he wouldn’t waste too much time. He didn’t want to chance being forced to hide in the Everglades, should anyone discover what they’d done to Ian and his agents. He’d had enough of that bitch.

“We’ll do what we can to find it,” he said, looking through the monocular again. “Let’s go.”

“Can I use the flashlight?”

“No. I don’t want to give away our location. Hang onto my pack and stay with me.”

Energized after sleeping the day away, and ready to finish the hunt, he walked into the mangrove forest. Since the trees here weren’t as dense and bunched together like a few of the forests he’d hiked through yesterday, they were able to move through the shallow water, rather than be forced to climb the roots. Although his arm ached more now than it had earlier, he could have handled the roots. Zack couldn’t, though. And for what he had planned, he needed the man for this last leg of the hunt.

The plastic gas can banged against a tree, then splashed into the water. Steven turned, just as Zack quickly retrieved it. “Did anything spill?” he asked.

“No. The cover is still over the nozzle,” Zack said, then began hobbling again. “About the gas…if we set the house on fire, someone will notice and call the fire department. When they find the bodies, they’re—”

“I’ve done this before. No one is going to come to the house.”

“How do you
know
?”

“Have you ever been duck hunting?” Steven asked instead.

“Why the hell would I want to do that?”

“Aside from duck jerky?”

“Sounds gross.”

Not the way his dad had taught him to prepare the jerky. Before he allowed himself to travel down that road, he said, “When you duck hunt, most times you might set up lifelike duck decoys in and around the pond, then you sit in your blind and wait, preferably in tall grasses. You could be there for an hour, sometimes three or more, before a formation flies near the pond. And when that happens, you have to wait for just the right moment before you call to the duck.”

“Call to the duck?”

“It’s a little device, and when you blow into it a certain way, the flock hears you and will change direction. As soon as that happens, and the birds fly overhead, that’s when you rise up from the tall grasses and fire.” He instantly pictured those duck hunting days with his dad, and how their old Lab, Stella, would rush to the pond and retrieve the fallen ducks.

“Look, I’ve never been hunting and it’s obviously something you like to do… No offense, but what you described is like shooting fish in a barrel, except it’s a bunch of birds in the sky.” Zack tugged the pack as he stumbled slightly. “And maybe I’m missing something, but what does duck hunting have to do with the gas can I’m carrying?”

Steven grinned. “Remember the device I mentioned, the one that calls to the flock and tricks them into changing directions? That’s what the gas is for.” After they’d slept, he had used Zack’s bloodstained pants, along with several long thick sticks to create a torch. “We’re going to smoke them out, not burn the place down.” He slowed his pace as the edge of the mangrove forest came into view. “And then I’m going to pick them off, one by one.”

“How many do you think might be in the house?”

“It’s hard to say. Based on the tracks I found by your trailer, there’s at least two agents.”

“Plus the old man and his bitch. Totally doable.”

Abso—fucking—lutely.

“I see the house,” Zack said, and let go of Steven’s pack, then leaned against a tree and shook his head. “We’re screwed. We walked all this way and they’re not even here.”

Steven stared at the rental house. His stomach tightened with that familiar sensation he’d always experienced just before a hunt would commence. Only this time, apprehension tugged at him. From his position, a single light glowed from the kitchen. He thought back to how he’d left the rental, and remembered leaving the lantern on top of the kitchen stove. Could Ian and the assholes have already left for Chicago? Or maybe they had rented a different house?

Worried Zack might be right, he raised the monocular, then swept it over the backyard. He then adjusted the lens and zoomed in on the house, and immediately noticed the back door’s glass pane had been replaced. “Interesting,” he said, even though the fixed window meant he’d have to change his plan.

“What’s that?”

“I told you these men work for a criminal investigation agency.”

“Yeah, so?”

“I kidnapped the man and woman from this house. There should be crime scene tape all around it.”

Zack rubbed his chin with the back of his knuckle. “You didn’t tell me anything about a kidnapping.”

“Is it a problem?”

“I…not exactly.”

“Say what’s on your mind,” Steven demanded, anxious to make a move and sneak closer to the house. “If you want out, I’ll handle the job myself.” He’d slit Zack’s throat with the machete if the man backed out on him now. Zack knew too much and Steven couldn’t afford having him as a liability.

“If you kidnapped them from here,” Zack began, “then how did they end up in the Glades?”

“I put them there.”

“Why?”

“To hunt them.”

Zack released a low chuckle. “Steven, you’re one twisted motherfucker. Okay, so you’re saying they didn’t call the cops, which means what to me?”

“It means they’re going to shoot to kill,” he said, peering through the monocular again, this time aiming it toward the carport. Ian’s Range Rover was there, which also meant the mistake he’d made with the SUV’s GPS locator had likely helped them discover where he’d started his hunt.

He smiled. Those arrogant bastards. They’d had ample opportunities to call the police. Had they figured out that he was behind the kidnapping and hunt? Had they gone to his dad’s and Elaine’s and found the messages he’d left for them? Had they looked up Jordan’s license plate and paid the former agent a visit?

Had they hidden the evidence?

His hand shook as raw fury overwhelmed him with hatred. “They hid the fucking evidence to save their asses, but not mine.”

“What evidence?” Zack asked. “What are you talking about?”

For the past six years he’d kept to his own company. Rage had him momentarily forgetting Zack even existed, let alone stood next to him. “It doesn’t matter.” Not anymore. The righteous hypocrites would soon be dead.

He gave Zack the monocular. “Look at the house. When I left it, the glass on the back door was broken. I was going to have you toss the torch through the smashed window, but since it’s fixed, there’s no way the stick will break the glass now.”

Zack glanced at him. “Sounds like I was going to be the duck decoy,” he said, his voice laced with betrayal as he returned the monocular to him.

Maybe Zack wasn’t a complete dumbass after all. “No. I was going to kill them before they could get to you.” Which was the truth. But if Zack had been shot, he wouldn’t have lost sleep over his death.

“Shit, man. I have a bullet in one leg and a knife wound in the other. I couldn’t outrun them…or was that your plan all along?” He shook his head and chuckled. “You’re using me, aren’t you? You have no intention of—”

“You sound like a whiny bitch.”

“I’m nobody’s bitch,” Zack said, his tone threatening.

A quick image of Moody emerged. “Neither am I.” He pulled the compression rifle from his pack, along with the Browning. “Here,” he said, handing Zack the pistol.

Zack stared at the gun for a few seconds before taking it. “You weren’t using me as a decoy?”

He’d had every intention of using Zack, but the man had proven himself useful. Except if Zack showed the slightest sign of hesitation or he dared to turn the gun on him, he would end his life.

And not swiftly.

“No, you’re not my bitch or my decoy.” He couldn’t bring himself to call Zack his partner. He’d made the mistake of trusting Ian and his agents, and they’d betrayed him. Zack could, too. Still. “We’re going to do this together, then take the car and either find your boat or drive to Siesta Key. Clear?”

Zack nodded. “Got it. Do I still need these?” he asked, and held up the torches.

“Yes. Soak them in gas. I have an idea of how we could still use them,” he said, pocketing the monocular. “There’s four of them, but I’m not worried about the woman.”

“She didn’t stab you or hit you with a tackle box.”

“Even if she has a weapon, she’s not trained,” Steven continued. “If they’re expecting me, they’ll expect me to be alone. We’re going to split up and circle the house.”

“And do what? Shoot out the windows, then toss the torches inside?”

Ian was a rich son of a bitch, who demanded nothing but the best. And, if he remembered correctly, proper etiquette. “No. We’re going to be polite and ring the doorbell.”

*

“Bored?”

Lola turned toward the door, just as Ryan’s dark silhouette filled the doorway. “A little,” she said, then covered her mouth and yawned. “When I was training, I sat on a couple of stakeouts with Dante, which were just as boring, but at least I had someone to talk to.”

He knelt next to the folding chair she’d set near the sliding door leading to the deck. “With no TV or cell phones to distract you, it’s easy to get in your head when you’re just sitting and waiting.”

“You have a thing for that line.”

“I don’t have a line,” he said, sounding a little offended.

“I’m not talking about a ‘hey, baby, what’s you sign’ kind of line.”

He quietly chuckled. “For the record, I’ve never asked a woman that. But, since you brought it up… Hey, baby, what’s your—”

Grinning, she gave him a slight jab with her elbow. “I’m a Libra. You?”

“Leo. Is there a Chinese year of the bear?”

“I don’t believe so, why?”

“I’m a lion, you’re a tiger, if we planned it right, we could’ve had a kid born under the sign of a bear and—”

She covered her mouth to stifle her laughter.

“What?” he asked, all innocent.

“What, nothing,” she said, still smiling. “You’d rather bring up fictional kids to cater to some weird
Wizard of Oz
fantasy than be serious and admit that maybe you’re the one who’s always in his head.”

When he didn’t respond, she searched for his hand, but ended up grabbing the edge of his bulletproof vest. A cold reminder of why they were here, sitting in the dark. And also why their relationship could never work. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

He latched onto her hand, then drew it to his lips and kissed her knuckles. “When Dante and I were alone, he talked about you. He told me how you’re into finding positive energy through
feng shui
. I was kind of surprised. I mean, I know you’re half-Chinese, and I know we just met, but I didn’t get a spiritual vibe from you.”