Текст книги "Something about You"

Автор книги: Julie James

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

Twenty-eight

CAMERON STOOD IN her closet, zipping her bridesmaid’s dress into a garment bag, when she noticed a figure hovering in the doorway.

“Were you just singing ‘Bette Davis Eyes’?” Jack asked with a lazy grin.

Cameron blushed, not having realized that’s what she’d been doing. Nice—a mind-blowing double orgasm and Jack literally had her singing.

“I might have been humming a little,” she said nonchalantly.

He cocked his head. “I thought that was your song with Collin.”

She laughed at this. “I don’t have a ‘song’ with Collin. It’s just a song I like.”

Jack appeared somewhat appeased by this. “Your Internet connection is too slow.”

Thank God—he was cranky about something. This Jack she could handle. The Jack who cupped her face as he whispered the most romantic and sexy things anyone had ever said to her as he made love to her on her own staircase, on the other hand, was a force of a different nature.

“You mentioned that the other day,” she said. “I’ve never had a problem with my connection before. Are you trying to run some super-fast secret agent program?”

“Yes. But it’s slow even for that.”

His teasing eyes made her stomach do a little flip. So this is what it’s like to fall in lov—hold on—not going to go there yet, Cameron told herself. She’d been dating Jack for all of—what—two days?

“I hope you’re not looking to me for answers about this Internet thing,” she told him. “If there’s a problem, I turn the computer off and then on again. If that doesn’t fix it, I call Collin.”

Jack folded his arms across his chest. “I think we need to talk about this Collin dependency. Because there’s a new sheriff in town.”

“Hmm. That’s a little alpha for my tastes,” Cameron said with a disapproving air.

She tried not to look totally turned on.

“I’m going to take a look upstairs at your computer,” Jack said. “Maybe one of your neighbors is tapping into your wireless signal. It’s easy to do in the city, with houses as close as they are. What’s your password?”

“You won’t need one. I leave the computer running and just let it go into sleep mode whenever I’m not using it.”

Jack threw her a look that said this was a big no-no. “I think I now know why you’re having Internet problems.”

“What is it you’re trying to do from your laptop, anyway?” Cameron asked.

“Just a few things I want to have ready when Wilkins calls. I can log onto the Bureau’s network remotely—I want to take another look at Lombard’s cell phone records that we pulled a couple weeks ago. Plus I’ve been thinking about setting up a trace on his phone, although I’ll need one of the tech guys to help me with that. Then we can track everywhere Lombard’s been—at least with his phone—over the last few days.”

Cameron put the bridesmaid’s dress back into its spot on the rack behind the door. She glanced over her shoulder. “Without a warrant, that sounds highly illegal.”

“Legal, illegal, there are so many gray areas.”

“I didn’t hear that, Jack.”

“Nothing to hear, counselor. I never said a word.”

WHEN HE REACHED the third floor, Jack turned left and headed into the office. Cameron’s desk faced the window, overlooking her front yard and the street below. Jack went over to the desk and took a seat. When he moved the mouse, the computer sprang to life.

Possibly, he just needed to reboot the system since she’d left it running for who knew how long. Still, he wanted to be sure. He checked to see how many computers were linked to her router—as he’d said to her, maybe someone was pilfering her wireless connection and that was slowing everything down.

It took a second for the screen to open. What he saw threw him for a loop.

That can’t be right.

There were fifteen devices using Cameron’s Internet connection. Jack was aware of two—his laptop and Cameron’s desktop computer.

So what the hell were the other thirteen? It was possible that a neighbor could be stealing her signal, maybe even a couple, but thirteen neighbors using her Internet was extremely unlikely.

Then again, maybe it wasn’t thirteen computers, but something else. That was what Jack checked next. He pulled up the data stream for the first device.

Strange.

It was transmitting an audio signal.

But Jack heard nothing. He turned up the volume on Cameron’s computer. Still nothing. He moved onto the next device—this one was also transmitting an audio signal.

Again, nothing.

What the hell?

He quickly checked the other signals—all audio—and finally found something being transmitted through the eighth one.

It was the sound of a woman singing softly. A smoky voice he recognized well.

All the boys think she’s a spy, she’s got Bette Davis eyes.

Cameron. In her bedroom.

Jack could hear the sound of a drawer shutting, then a zipper, as she continued unpacking her suitcase.

Son of a bitch.

He deliberately began drumming his fingers on the desk—making enough noise for a test, but not too much—as he hurriedly checked the remaining devices. He knew what he would eventually find. When he got to the last audio signal, the sound of his fingers rapping against the wood echoed through Cameron’s computer, clear as day.

Jack would’ve sworn out loud if he could have.

The goddamn house was bugged.

His mind raced, dozens of thoughts all at once. The masked man . . . Thursday afternoon . . . they had assumed he’d been waiting to attack Cameron when she came home from work. Jack realized now that Mandy’s killer hadn’t been in the house at four thirty in the afternoon to avoid police surveillance; he’d been there because he was after something else entirely. He wanted to listen.

He wanted to know what Cameron knew.

Nowadays, microphones used for eavesdropping were smaller than ever—less than the size of a button. And all one needed was a computer, a wireless network, and the IP addresses of the monitoring devices. Not much harder than setting up a nanny cam, particularly for someone who knew what he was doing.

Jack pulled out his BlackBerry—luckily, now that they knew what the guy was up to, they could turn things around. Assuming Mandy’s killer was actively monitoring the bugs, they could back-trace the link to the IP address of the computer he was using to listen to them. And once they had that information, they could pinpoint the location of that computer—and the killer.

Jack started to type a text message to Wilkins—obviously, he couldn’t call him or anyone else from the house with it being bugged. Then he stopped, realizing it would be faster to simply take Cameron out to his car and make the call from there. He’d have to slip her a note explaining the situation, of course, because they couldn’t say anything that would tip the killer off—he could be listening to them right then.

Jack’s stomach twisted into a knot.

The killer could be listening.

Assuming he’d been monitoring them, the killer would’ve heard every word he and Cameron had said that evening. Fragments of their conversations echoed through his head:

I’m pretty sure the guy who killed Mandy Robards was wearing a gun the night he strangled her . . .

His name is Grant Lombard. He does private security for Senator Hodges . . . He matches the physical description of the guy we’re looking for . . .

By any chance does Grant Lombard have an alibi for the night of Mandy Robards’s murder? . . .

Perhaps I need to ask him if he has an alibi for the time of your attack.

Then Jack recalled a separate conversation, an earlier one, and his whole body went cold.

To disarm the alarm, you just enter the security code.

What’s five-two-two-five?

It spells “Jack” on the keypad. Should be easy enough to remember.

The killer knew the code to the alarm.

“Cameron,” Jack whispered, his heart leaping into his throat. He’d left her alone . . . he couldn’t hear her right then . . . the second floor was too quiet . . . Jack dropped his BlackBerry and reached for his shoulder harness—

“Don’t make a fucking move,” commanded a low voice behind him.

The distinctive sound of the slide of a gun chambering a round echoed through the room.

With his hand frozen at his harness, Jack looked over his shoulder. He took in the man standing in the doorway, aiming a gun right at his head.

“Lombard,” Jack growled.

“You almost had it there, Pallas. Almost,” Lombard said. “Now take the shoulder harness off. Slowly.”

The first thing Jack noticed was that Lombard didn’t have a silencer on his gun. Which meant that Cameron was still alive downstairs. Lombard had come after him first.

“I said take the shoulder harness off. Now,” Lombard said quietly.

Jack read the look on Lombard’s face and knew he wasn’t bluffing. He unhooked the harness and set it on the floor. He’d be no good to Cameron if Lombard blew his brains all over the office wall right then and there.

“Kick it over here,” Lombard said.

Jack complied. His eyes remained trained on the trigger of Lombard’s gun. One twitch and he’d be out of that chair. Dive to the floor, pull the desk over, and use it as a shield. It wasn’t the best plan, but it was something.

Then Lombard changed the game.

“Cameron Lynde,” he called out loudly, his voice reverberating through the top floor. “I have a gun pointed at your boyfriend’s head. If you’re not on the landing in three seconds, I will kill him.”

Jack forced himself to sound calm and controlled. “Get out of the house now, Cameron. Let me handle this.”

Lombard didn’t so much as blink. “Three seconds, Cameron. One, Two—”

“Don’t.”

The single, shaky word came from the landing a half a floor below them.

“Good girl, Cameron,” Lombard said.

The three of them remained in a holding pattern. Lombard in the doorway, pointing his gun at Jack, Cameron out of view on his other side, halfway down the stairs.

“If I hear a gunshot, I’ll run,” she called up. “And I know it’s me you really want.”

“Neither of you has to get hurt—I know a way we can work this out,” Lombard said.

“Don’t listen to a fucking word he says, Cameron. Get out of the house now,” Jack ordered her.

“I want to make a deal,” Lombard said, talking over him. “That’s all. You’re a prosecutor, Cameron—you can make it happen. And this gun in my hand gives you one hell of an incentive to do just that. I know things—like the name of the person who told me about you. There’s a mole—a big one. I can help you nail him. But we need to talk about this face-to-face. How do I know you’re not standing there with a phone in your hand, calling the police right now? So come up the stairs slowly, with your hands in front of you. Do it now, Cameron. Or Jack dies.”

It almost sounded convincing. Jack prayed she wouldn’t fall for Lombard’s speech. “It’s a setup, Cameron. You come up those stairs, and we’re both dead.”

There was a pause. Cameron remained strangely silent. Debating her options, presumably.

Jack knew the time to act was now. In his mind, there was only one option, and that was getting her as far away from Lombard as possible. No matter what it took.

She’d said she would run if she heard a gun shot. He had to count on that. He would draw Lombard’s fire and give Cameron a chance to escape. He wouldn’t stop until he reached Lombard, no matter what hit him.

Other men had tried to kill him before. For Cameron’s sake, he was willing to see if this asshole’s luck was any better than the others.

Jack got ready to make his move.

Beads of sweat formed at Lombard’s brow. He called down again, and his voice was strained and anxious. “You’ve got two fucking seconds, Cameron, so either get your ass up here or say good-bye to Jack.”

“Okay! I’m coming,” Cameron shouted up urgently.

But she wasn’t on the landing anymore. There was the faint sound of a door opening—it came from the hallway on the floor beneath them. A hinge squeaked. Something metal rattled.

“She’s getting a goddamn gun,” Lombard hissed.

Fortunately, Jack knew the layout of the house a lot better than Lombard. Not a gun, he thought, realizing precisely what Cameron was up to.

She was fucking brilliant.

The door she had opened, the one closest to the stairs, was her linen closet. And while there wasn’t a gun stashed in there—at least not one that Jack knew about—there was something else that could help them.

The circuit breaker.

Lombard snapped, having had enough. “Fuck you both.” His eyes narrowed in on Jack. Everything happened at once. He pulled the trigger as Jack dove for the ground, knowing what was coming. There was a loud CLICK! from downstairs and—

All the lights in the house went out.

The gun fired in the dark, and the bullet whizzed over Jack’s head. Not wasting a moment, he leapt up and ran for Lombard. Lombard reacted more quickly to the surprise of the darkness than Jack had hoped; he took off into the hallway. Lombard fired wildly behind him, and bullets hit the walls beside Jack. He kept going. Gaining on Lombard right before the stairwell, Jack saw his chance—he dove and tackled Lombard full-force. Grabbing for Lombard’s gun, Jack pushed him backward at the same time, using all his strength to hurtle them toward the wooden banister. Jack braced himself—this was going to hurt—as they slammed against the banister and broke through with a loud crack.

Tangled together, both men plummeted thirty-five feet down the open staircase.

They landed hard on the first-floor foyer. Jack heard the sickening sound of breaking bone as he crashed on top of Lombard, who screamed out in pain.

Jack instinctively lunged for Lombard’s gun, gritting his teeth at the flash of pain in his chest—he must have broken a few ribs. Fighting off a wave of dizziness from the shock of the fall, he pushed away from Lombard, stood up, and pointed the gun at him.

Jack caught his breath and wiped blood off his forehead with his sleeve. One of the bullets had hit the wall so close to his head he’d been cut by a flying piece of plaster.

“Almost had it there, Lombard,” he panted. “Almost.”

Jack heard footsteps above him. He looked up and saw Cameron running down the stairs. Seeing him, she stopped on the landing between the first and second floors and sank against the wall in relief. Jack realized then that he and Lombard must’ve fallen through the stairwell right past her.

With a look of shock, Cameron peered up at the third floor, all thirty-five feet up, then back at him. “My God, Jack.”

She caught sight of Lombard through the moonlight and swallowed. He lay on the floor before Jack with his right leg bent at a grotesque angle beneath him. Breathing heavily, he clutched his right arm to his chest and watched Jack warily.

With all the action, Jack had lost count of how many times Lombard had fired at him. He popped out the clip of the gun to see if it was still loaded. Three rounds left—more than enough. He slammed the clip back in.

He and Lombard had some unfinished business to discuss.

“Go upstairs to your bedroom, Cameron. Don’t come out until I tell you,” Jack said.

She nodded. “Right. I’ll call for backup and an ambulance.”

“Don’t call anyone. Just go upstairs.”

Her eyes widened. “What are you going to do?”

“You don’t need to know. You’re an assistant U.S. attorney—you can’t be a part of this.”

Lombard’s eyes widened nervously.

Cameron hesitated on the landing, and for a moment Jack thought she wasn’t going to listen to him. “Okay,” she finally said. She left, and a few seconds later Jack heard the door to her bedroom shut.

He turned his attention to Lombard, who was sweating profusely as he lay on the floor at his feet.

“When we were upstairs, you talked about the person who told you about Cameron’s involvement in the Robards case. I want to know who it was.”

Lombard coughed, wheezing in pain. “Fuck you, Pallas.”

“You might want to save that for later. I haven’t even gotten started yet.”

“Fuck you anyway.”

Jack squatted down at Lombard’s side. “You’ve been listening to Cameron and me this whole time,” he said quietly.

Lombard tried to laugh, but it came out sounding hollow. “Almost every word. Loved the part where you wouldn’t fuck her after I shot her. You’re as weak as the rest, Pallas. All because of a woman.”

Maybe Lombard saw him as weak because of Cameron, Jack thought.

But tonight she was his greatest strength.

“Since you’ve been listening, you know what she means to me. I would kill anyone who harmed her,” he said with cold simplicity. “Give me a name, and I’ll make an exception.”

Lombard didn’t say anything. But he didn’t look so smug anymore, either.

Jack brought the gun in closer. “You shot her. I watched as you took this very gun and held it under her chin. Like this.” He grabbed Lombard’s jaw and shoved the gun right under his chin. Lombard flinched, breathing heavily through his nose.

Jack pushed the barrel harder, digging into Lombard’s skin. “Give me an excuse to pull this trigger. I want to do it so badly I can taste it.”

“I want a deal,” Lombard blurted out through clenched teeth.

Jack nodded. “I believe you actually mean that this time.” He pressed the gun to Lombard’s forehead. “Here’s the deal: tell me what I want to know, and I won’t have to tell the medical examiner that I shot you between the eyes in self-defense.”

Lombard swallowed hard. He said nothing at first, but Jack saw it in his eyes.

Defeat.

Lombard sagged against the floor and finally gave Jack the answer he’d been waiting for.

“Silas Briggs.”

LESS THAN TEN minutes after Jack called for backup, the house was teaming with people—some in uniforms, some not. He told the paramedics what had happened to Lombard, then spoke briefly to both Wilkins and the cops.

Jack stood side-by-side with Wilkins, watching as the paramedics placed a neck brace onto a handcuffed Lombard and slid a backboard underneath him. He glanced up at Cameron. She’d been sitting on the steps of the landing ever since the cops and FBI had arrived. He sensed she hadn’t wanted to get too close to Lombard as he lay on the floor at the bottom of the staircase. He hoped she wasn’t trying to avoid him as well.

“I’d like a minute alone with Cameron,” Jack said to Wilkins. “Could you see to that?”

Wilkins nodded. “Of course. I’ll make sure everyone stays down here.”

Jack grabbed a blanket the paramedics had brought in, slipped past Lombard on the stairs, and headed up. He knelt down and wrapped the blanket around Cameron’s shoulders. “Are you okay?”

She shook her head. “No.”

Jack noticed she was trembling. He helped her to a standing position, then led her up the stairs and into her bedroom. He closed the door behind them, took her by the hand, and sat her down on the bed.

“Say something, Cameron. Anything.”

She sounded distant when she answered. “When he called down from upstairs, I was standing right here by this bed.” She frowned. “I was trying to decide what underwear I was going to wear to bed that night, wondering if you liked black or red better.” Her voice cracked. “Then this strange voice shouted down that he had a gun pointed at your head and that you had three seconds to live.”

Jack knelt at the floor in front of her. “You did so great. Cutting off the power was the smartest thing anyone could’ve done in that situation.”

She wiped her eyes. “Right, I’m such a hero. You dove off a thirty-five-foot staircase. I turned off a light switch.”

“It . . . was a very key light switch.”

She sniffed. Her nose was red and her mascara was smudged underneath her eyes. Jack thought he had never seen anyone look so beautiful. When he thought about what could’ve happened . . . how close he’d come to losing her . . .

“You’re doing the serious face again.” Cameron touched his cheek, looking him over with concern. “Are you hurt? You have to be, after that fall.”

“I might’ve broken a few ribs,” Jack said.

“What? We need to get one of the paramedics to check you out. You could have internal bleeding or something.”

“It’s fine. I’ll have someone take a look later, when I’m finished with all this.”

She shook her head. “Not later, Jack. Now. You’re not invincible, you know.”

“Shh . . . I’ve been trying to keep that under wraps for years.”

That finally got a slight smile out of her. Jack got up and sat next to her on the bed.

She leaned her head against his shoulder. “I didn’t go into my room, you know. I stayed in the upstairs hallway to listen.”

“I figured as much.”

Cameron turned her head to look at him. “Those things you said to Lombard . . . were you bluffing?”

Jack thought about his response to this. He’d said a lot of things to Lombard. But right or wrong, the man she’d heard down there was him. “Does it matter?” he asked her.

She paused for a moment before shaking her head.

“No.”