Текст книги "Wicked Lies"

Автор книги: Lora Leigh

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

CHAPTER 12

What had she allowed to happen?

How had she come to a place where the very thought of being without Jazz was almost more than she could bear?

All because of some damned fluke that sent Cord checking to be certain of the background she was using. Since when did he begin running teachers’ backgrounds? Things like that he left to men like Slade and several others in the county with federal ties.

Hell, how could she have stopped her brother from checking deeper into Annie Mayes’s background? She couldn’t have. No matter what she’d done or the contacts she might have formed, there was no stopping Cord’s instincts. They were phenomenal.

And he was nosy.

He just couldn’t keep his nose out of her business, could he? He’d always been such a damned busybody, making her crazy by snitching on her with Momma and Poppy when she least expected it. He’d even told Poppy how she was watching Jazz that summer, after telling her she had to stay away from him.

Stay away from Jazz?

The very thought had been inconceivable. It was all she could do not to beg Jazz to kiss her, to show her why she was so mesmerized by him. But she hadn’t told Cord that. She’d known better, because he would have immediately had Momma and Poppy send her to a convent or something.

Momma wouldn’t have allowed it, though. Her mother would have been concerned, perhaps, but she would have also been terribly amused by her sons. Their protectiveness was something she’d warned Kenni she may as well get used to, because they would always feel it was their privilege to watch after her.

But they hadn’t watched after her.

That summer was the first in years that her brothers didn’t accompany her and her mother to New York. There had been some job they’d had to complete. One that couldn’t wait for any reason as far as Poppy had been concerned.

She pushed the memories back. She didn’t want to remember the flames and the blood.

Leaning against the open balcony door the next morning as a cool breeze whispered past her, she remembered telling her mother how she felt about Jazz on the drive to New York that summer.

That was part of the shopping tradition. Every summer they went to New York for three or four days. On the drive there her mother would always ask her about whatever boys she was interested in. That summer, though, Kenni hadn’t dated; nor had she spent much time on the phone with any of the young men who called her. For that reason her mother had asked her who’d managed to steal her heart.

Once a year, Kenni could tell her mother anything. The rule was, what happened in New York, what was said in New York, stayed in New York. Momma never told Poppy her secrets, and her brothers never learned of them. What Kenni confided stayed just between her and her mother.

God, she missed her momma.

Kenni had never had to worry about her place in her mother’s life; she had known Sierra Maddox loved nothing in the world as much as she loved her husband and children. But her relationship with her daughter had been special. They were girls together. They shopped and laughed and Kenni knew she could tell her anything.

She’d had no one to talk to since her mother’s death. There had been no one to dry her tears when she’d cried, no one to soothe her when the pain of being hunted had torn her soul to pieces.

Gunny had kept her alive, though a few times it had been close.

He hadn’t been good with tears. If he saw even a hint of them he’d disappear until the danger of them was gone. He could handle her silence, he could handle her staring off into space, steeped in her agony, as long as she didn’t cry.

So she’d learned not to cry. Having him disappear for hours on end had terrified her. She’d always been scared he wouldn’t come back for her.

Then he hadn’t come back for her.

She hadn’t even cried then, she thought, frowning absently as she rubbed at the chill racing over her arms. He was supposed to be meeting with someone who had information on the Kin. No big deal. He’d sent her to pick up the car he’d arranged to buy from some dirty, shifty-eyed old guy on a back street.

When he hadn’t arrived at their prearranged meeting place, she’d gone looking for him.

Swallowing tightly she pushed the memory of what she’d found away. She couldn’t deal with it right now, either. Right now she had to gather her courage and her strength to slip away from Jazz.

She had no car, no decent shoes, and getting away from him was going to be next to impossible, but she had to go. She had to get out of Loudoun, preferably alive, and figure out what she was going to do.

And where she was going to hide.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t think of anyplace else to hide. Without her contacts hiding would be much harder as well. She’d taken them out as Jazz had asked, then they had completely disappeared from the bedside table where she’d put the small case.

The rest of her contacts were at the rental house, hidden with her laptop. Contacts, alternative ID, and a little cash. She might need them. If Jazz caught her running they wouldn’t do her a damned bit of good, though.

Drawing in a deep breath, she left the comforting silence of the bedroom and headed downstairs to the kitchen instead. Entering the brightly lit room, she wished she’d stayed in the bedroom.

Stepping past the doorway she was suddenly pinned by half a dozen gazes, and all staring at her eyes.

Kate and Lara, along with Jessie, Slade, Zack, and Jazz, watched her from where they sat around the large kitchen table. Steaming cups of coffee sat in front of them, plates of doughnuts and croissants beside their coffee cups, as tension thickened in the room.

“Geez, and I thought Jazz’s eyes were bright,” Lara muttered. “You’re right, Jessie, there’s no mistaking who she is.”

Just fucking great.

Slicing Jazz a condemning look, she wondered if he even had the good grace to realize the risk he was making her take.

“Coffee?” Jazz asked, his expression completely innocent, as though he hadn’t forced her to remove the color-dimming contacts. Rising from his chair he moved to the coffeepot, grabbed a cup from beside it, and filled it quickly.

That didn’t keep the others from staring at her.

“Morning, Jessie, Slade, Zack,” she greeted, ignoring the comment on her eyes. “Slade, I thought you were keeping Jessie away for a while?”

It would have been best if he’d done just that.

“Oh yeah, like I was going to miss this,” Jessie snorted. “Finding out my best friend is none other than the missing Maddox Princess was more than I could pass up. Come on, Your Highness,” she teased then, her brown eyes sparking with laughter. “You know me better than that.”

Kenni almost grinned. Jessie could do that, take something that should piss Kenni right off and make her laugh instead.

Rather than giving in to that urge, she turned to Jazz as he moved to her with a cup of coffee.

“Snitch,” she accused derisively. “Really, Jazz? You couldn’t even hold out and let them see me first? They may not have even guessed.”

The look of disgust didn’t even faze him. He just winked, those wicked blue eyes laughing at her.

“Sweetheart, trust me, they would have guessed. Besides, you were sleeping and wouldn’t talk to me,” he pointed out. “I had to tell someone and Kate and Lara were tired of talking about you.”

She slid a look to the other two women. They really weren’t pulling off the whole innocent-expression thing. Then she turned to Slade.

“I need to leave,” she told Slade, the only person she believed would have Jazz’s safety uppermost in mind. “Would you please take me back to the house?”

Slade just watched her for a long silent moment before his gaze turned to Jazz. A second later his lips quirked in amusement.

“I would, Kenni, but he’d kill me before I got you out of the house. I’d hate to make my children an orphan today.”

“Versus tomorrow, or the day after that?” she asked him, amazed that she sounded so calm, so cool. “Really, Slade, I’m sure you’ve seen the report these two busybodies dug up.” She flicked her fingers toward Kate and Lara. “No one survives attempting to help me. Is that what you want for Jazz? For yourself?”

Kate and Lara glanced at each other in mocking surprise.

“Busybodies?” Kate murmured to her sister. “That’s one of the nicest insults we’ve ever received.”

Kenni had hoped the two women weren’t as insane as the rest of the group seemed to be. She’d hoped in vain.

“She’s just as overdramatic now as she was as a teenager,” Zack observed as he sat back in his chair and lifted his cup for a sip of the steaming liquid. “Hell, Kenni, you should know better than that. Whoever’s betraying your father can’t possibly pull together enough Kin to come against us. Why do you think your father and Cord do little things like come to one of us when someone we know has come to their notice? We could divide the Kin if we wanted to, and they know it.”

Arrogance.

Every damned one of them was so arrogant and self-assured it was sickening.

The problem was, she had no idea if they were right or wrong. Ten years was a long time when it came to loyalties and how they might switch. Just because these three hadn’t been in the military didn’t mean they weren’t strong enough to garner the respect and loyalty of those who were or had been. Charismatic and intelligent, they were natural leaders with little desire to actually lead unless they had no other choice.

“What if it’s not a case of betraying him?” she asked, the pain of that thought as deep and jagged as it had been when Gunny had first suggested it. “He remarried well before that first year was out.”

The rumors that Vincent Maddox and his current wife, once his sister-in-law, had been having an affair weren’t new to Kenni. Even Gunny had begun to suspect her father was behind the death of her mother and the attempts to kill Kenni.

“Vinny hasn’t been exactly sane since the funerals,” Slade remarked somberly, his gaze meeting hers. “And from what I understand he calls her by your mother’s name more often than he calls her by her own. Besides, there’s no way he could pull something like that off without Cord’s knowledge. And there’s not a chance in hell your brother would have gone along with it.”

If only she had the luxury of believing in her brother with such strength. Even if he wasn’t involved, if she went to him, she could be risking his safety—and she refused to do that.

“Then who? Who?” The cry tore from her, more jagged and loud than she intended. “Tell me how anyone could kill Vincent Maddox’s wife and make numerous attempts against his daughter without either Vincent or his sons knowing? How?” Strangling back her fury was impossible.

It was that sense of betrayal, though, the overwhelming, agonizing knowledge that no one else wielded that much power within the Maddox clan or the Kin. Vincent, Cord, Deacon, or Sawyer had to know. The Kin was too tight-knit for anything else.

“Jessie.” She turned to her friend, desperate for a voice of reason. “Talk some sense into them.”

“I did.” Jessie blinked back at her as though in surprise. “I convinced them to let me come with them this morning so I could talk some sense into you. Kenni, you can’t do this alone anymore. It’s going to take a team. That’s something you’ve never faced your enemies with. It’s not just you and Gunny anymore, or a lone friend trying to help from another location. It’s a concentrated effort by men who wield a tremendous amount of power. But it will only work if you reveal yourself.”

So much for the voice of reason.

Kenni dropped her head as she lifted a hand to rub at her temple. She was getting a headache. She hadn’t had a headache in years. Come to think of it, she might remember getting several headaches that last summer. Each one coming after dealing with Jazz and his youthful arrogance.

That arrogance was slightly more developed now.

“That’s why you’re all here? To convince me to reveal myself?” She had to laugh, but there was little amusement, only amazement and outrage “You’re kidding, right?”

“Kenni, by revealing yourself you force your enemies’ hand. You throw them off balance by upping the ante. For whatever reason, learning you’re here made them panic enough to try to take you out in public. That was a mistake. Let’s ride their panic and give them the one thing they obviously don’t want.”

“I can’t deal with this,” she snapped, furious that they would gang up on her and try to convince her to do the one thing she feared could have the Kin converging on her in greater numbers. None of them would survive that. “Take me back to the house, Jazz. Please.”

They had no idea what they were dealing with, or the merciless brutality the Kin could display.

The look he gave her assured her that wasn’t happening.

“Drink your coffee, sweetheart, you’re going to need it,” he advised her firmly. “And before you completely lose your mind, remember the price you’ll pay if you slip out on me.”

He would call her brothers.

Rolling her eyes in complete disgust, Kenni moved across the room to the back door, opened it, and stepped out to the deck. She definitely needed to finish her coffee before dealing with him.

She may need a whole pot of coffee first.

*   *   *

Jazz watched her leave, the feminine disgust and fury that filled her expression at odds with the uncertainty there.

She had no intentions of being part of the discussion regarding her safety or the Kin.

“She’s going to run, Jazz,” Kate warned him, drawing his attention from Kenni back to the table.

“She will.” Jessie nodded, her brown eyes dark and filled with fear for her friend. “I can see it in her, too. She’s completely distancing herself, pulling back from any emotional connections to allow herself to make the move.”

Yeah, he’d seen that in her as well. Strangely enough, it made him hard.

His dick was like steel in his jeans, and the thought of melting that distance was a challenge he knew he wouldn’t refuse for long. He might last five minutes after the others left.

“Are you sure about her brothers, Jazz?” Lara asked then. “There’s no way they’re involved in this?”

“They’ve grieved for ten years,” Slade replied as he sat back in his chair and regarded the rest of them. “Especially Cord. Kenni was his shadow while she was growing up and he was damned proud of her. Every year on the anniversary of what he believes is her death, he gets skunk-drunk and doesn’t talk about anything but Kenni and his mother. He feels guilty for not being there for them. It was one of only a few times he hadn’t accompanied them.”

“Chances are pretty slim then.” Lara nodded before looking down at her papers and making another note.

“Chances are zero,” Jazz sighed. “But I swore not to contact him. She’s adamant that her family not be told she’s still alive.”

“Fear they’ll be hurt? Or is she really convinced one of them is involved?” Zack questioned.

“I’m not sure.” Running his hands through his hair before rubbing the back of his neck in frustration, Jazz tried to make sense of the woman Kenni had become. “We have less than two weeks left before Cord comes looking for answers, though. I have that long to convince her to trust him.”

“Well, good luck on that one,” Kate sighed. “She really didn’t seem inclined to trust anyone the other night or now, let alone family. Thankfully, we don’t need her to initiate the investigation into who ordered her mother’s death.”

“Kin won’t trust the two of you,” Jazz warned them. “You’re not from Loudoun, nor are you blood-related to anyone tied to the Maddox family.”

Kate smiled. One of those soft, seductive little smiles that he’d seen entrance men when she turned it on them.

“Now, sugar,” she drawled as sweet as any southern belle. “Don’t you know men talk, too? I just have to find the right one, at the right time, who’s had just the right amount to drink. That’s not as hard as you think it is.” The deliberately suggestive wink had him almost feeling sorry for whomever she chose as prey.

The door to the porch was pushed open hurriedly and Kenni stalked inside. Anger and accusation filled her brilliant-green eyes. The look only made him harder.

“You called Cord,” she hissed, that anger transforming into rage as she stood glaring at him. “Why would you do that, Jazz? You promised.”

“I didn’t call Cord,” he denied, his arms crossing over his chest as he narrowed his gaze on her. “Trust me, if I had, the whole fucking clan would be here.”

A little trust wouldn’t hurt, he thought mockingly. She could give him her virginity, but she refused to trust him. Now, wasn’t that some shit?

“Well, he just pulled in,” she snapped, fear and a haunting ache shadowing her gaze. “I swear to God, Jazz, tell him who I am and I promise you, you’ll never find me when I run.”

Before he could counter the threat she turned and raced through the house, returning no doubt to the bedroom.

Son of a bitch, could this get any more fucking complicated?

Turning to Kate and Lara, he nodded toward the direction Kenni had taken in an indication that they retreat as well. If the twins were going to be investigating the Kin, he didn’t want Cord knowing who they were before the investigation started. No doubt he’d run their backgrounds the second he caught sight of them, but those two were damned good at covering themselves. Better to let them establish whatever cover story they came up with before Cord knew they were there.

No sooner had the twins disappeared from sight than Marcus let out a warning woof to alert Jazz that someone was crossing the yard and heading for the house. The yard and pool was his territory as far as he was concerned, and he didn’t care much for trespassers.

“Easy, Marcus,” he called to the Rottweiler before turning to face the windows looking out on the back porch. Hell, it wasn’t even noon yet. No one should have to deal with Cord Maddox before evening at the earliest.

Seconds later Cord stepped onto the porch. Six two, lean, powerful and glaring at the world, ready to take it on. He’d been trying to take it on for ten years, too. The loss of his mother and baby sister had been too much for the other man’s overdeveloped sense of responsibility and love.

He’d never stopped blaming himself, and Jazz knew he never would.

Cord didn’t bother to knock. The stares leveled on him as he stepped into the house couldn’t have been comfortable. Like a bug under a microscope he was pinned by all of them, assessing, suspicious, and wary.

“Maddox, what the hell do you want?” Jazz bit out, irritation threatening to spill over in the other man’s direction. He hadn’t tamped down the anger from their last little meeting, and adding to it might not be a good idea. For either of them.

A dark-blond brow lifted with lazy arrogance while cynical humor curled at the corner of his lips.

“Not in the best of moods this morning, are you, Jazz?” he observed as he moved to the coffeepot, found himself a cup, and poured the last of the steaming liquid into it. “Get up on the wrong side of your little schoolteacher?”

Cord knew she was here. They’d expected that. Still, the comment didn’t sit well.

“Wrong direction to go in, Cord.” He’d end up teaching the other man his manners with a fist at this rate.

“Interesting.” There was no amusement in Cord’s expression, despite the smile that quirked his lips as he opened a cabinet door and pulled out the creamer Jazz kept hidden.

“Just make yourself at home,” Jazz invited, the heavy mockery in his tone fully intended as Cord stirred a heaping spoon of the creamy powder into his coffee.

“I thought I was.” Turning, Cord faced the room, sipped at the coffee, and waited.

What the hell he was waiting for, Jazz didn’t even want to guess.

“Miss Mayes doing okay?” Cord asked when no one volunteered to guess at what he wanted. “I heard there was an accident in town the other day?”

Jazz knew why he was there but wasn’t going to make it easy for Cord. A surefire way to make a Maddox suspicious? Make something easy for them.

“She’s doing fine,” he growled. “She thinks it was some drunk driver.”

That drew Cord’s attention long enough for the others to unobtrusively slide their papers and files beneath laptops or tablets.

“Hmm,” Cord murmured before sipping at the coffee once again. “A drunk driver, you say?”

“Are you saying anything different, Cord?” Slade asked before Jazz could voice the question.

Cord leaned back against the counter, stared at the slate floor for long moments before lifting his gaze once again and meeting Jazz’s.

“The driver of that car doesn’t drink,” he stated, his eyes narrowed as they met Jazz’s, suspicion now filling the emerald orbs and making them brighter.

Jazz tensed.

“You know who it was then?” he questioned the other man. “You here to tell me who he is, or just trying to piss me off?”

“Probably both,” Cord drawled lazily, his lips thinning in obvious irritation. “Which do you want first?”

“The name.”

All he needed was the name.

“The driver was Joe Fallon,” Cord stated. “But you’re not going to get to question him. See, this is where I get to piss you off. Or you get to piss me off.”

Adrenaline was building, pulsing in his blood with a demand for action.

“What makes you think I’m not going to question him?” He’d tear that fucking mountain apart if he had to.

For the briefest moment rage flickered in Cord’s emerald gaze before disappearing as though it had never been there.

“Because he’s dead.” Lifting the cup to sip again, Cord watched him too intently. “Deacon, Sawyer, and I went up the mountain to his cabin this morning to ask him about it. It appeared he’d been shot just as he came through the door into the kitchen of his cabin.” He set his coffee cup on the counter before turning back. “Now, I just gotta ask, Jazz, you kill him?”

Jazz, Slade, and Zack had an agreement with the Maddoxes. Anything that demanded action against Kin, they’d notify a Maddox. Any action against anyone Slade, Zack, or Jazz was known to affiliate with, and the brothers came to him. Just as they had with Kenni.

“I didn’t get the chance.” He would have, if he’d known who to kill, if he’d had a chance to question him first—but not without first observing the pact they had. “I hadn’t learned who took a swipe at her yet.”

For a moment Cord’s jaw bunched, the carefully banked anger finding no release, no relief.

“It wouldn’t have taken you long.” Cord breathed out, the sound rife with frustration as a grimace contorted his expression. “Dammit, Jazz, what the fuck is going on? What’s that woman involved in that had Fallon trying to race right over her ass?”

Demanding, arrogantly presuming he deserved an answer, Cord faced them, his gaze meeting Slade’s and Zack’s first before turning back to Jazz.

“She’s not involved in anything, Cord.” There were days that dealing with more than one Maddox was more than a man could handle. “What the hell was Fallon involved in that had him racing down the street like a fucking maniac?”

Slade and Zack watched the exchange silently, but Jazz could see the look on Slade’s face. The other man was ready to jump between Cord and Jazz at the slightest provocation. Slade was still trying to play the big brother, though Jazz hadn’t needed a big brother in a lot of years.

Cord shifted his shoulders before placing his hands on the counter behind him and staring back at all of them fiercely. He wasn’t happy and wasn’t bothering to hide it.

“That the story you’re sticking with then?” Cord questioned with obvious doubt. “Come on, Jazz, this is me and we both know better than that. Fallon hasn’t been off that mountain in months, then one day he just decides to run some little schoolteacher over? Does that make sense to you?”

None of this had made sense since the night Cord had revealed that Annie Mayes wasn’t Annie Mayes.

“That makes more sense to me than your suggestion that she somehow deserved it,” Jazz bit out.

A grimace tightened Cord’s face. Evidently, he was enjoying dealing with him about as much he was enjoying dealing with Cord.

“That wasn’t what I said, dammit. I said she’s involved in something and you damned well know she is.” Maddox straightened then, the glare on his face increasing as his gaze swept the room. “And every damned one of you is going to play innocent?”

Deep-green eyes finally settled on Jessie. “You playing this little game with them?”

“It’s not a game.” Jessie smiled sweetly as she propped her chin on her hand and regarded him with a far-too-pleasant smile. “They’re very innocent.”

Cord could only shake his head to that one. “Jessie, you used to be such a good little girl,” he sighed heavily. “Slade’s corrupting you.”

“That’s beside the point,” she assured him with a smile. “In this case, they really are innocent. If Annie was up to something, I would know it. And I know she’s not, so mind your manners, please.”

For a moment Cord’s face softened and Jazz remembered hearing Kenni tell her brothers that a few times. Mind your manners, please, or I’ll tell Momma was the full threat.

“Mind my manners.” Shaking his head once, he turned back to Jazz. “You know nothing, right?”

“That about covers it,” Jazz agreed.

And Cord wasn’t buying it.

“I’ll remember that when I prove differently. When I do, Jazz, we’re going to have problems,” he warned, heading toward the door he’d used to enter the kitchen. “I’ll go before you end up pissing me right off. That wouldn’t be good for either of us.”

Wasn’t that the truth, Jazz agreed silently.

“And Jessie.” Cord turned to her slowly, his gaze implacable as it met hers. “Only one person ever said that to me—to mind my manners, please. She was the best of all of us, but she’s been gone a long time now. I’d appreciate if I didn’t have to hear it again.”

With that, he stalked from the kitchen, the door closing silently behind him before he strode from the back porch and into the yard.

The grief and agony he’d glimpsed on Cord’s face when Jessie spoke only strengthened his belief that Cord would never be a part of a plot to kill Kenni. Discounting her fears and telling Cord the truth wasn’t going to help her trust him, though.

“Poor Cord,” Jessie whispered then, her brown eyes filled with remorse. “I guess I should watch repeating those little asides Kenni’s bad for, huh?”

Yeah, that might be a good idea, Jazz thought ruefully. A damned good idea.