Текст книги "Wicked Lies"
Автор книги: Lora Leigh
сообщить о нарушении
Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 18 страниц)
CHAPTER 8
Kate and Lara Blanchard looked like the girls next door until you paid close attention to their eyes. A hint of the bitterness and disillusionment lingered in their violet gazes. It wasn’t their eyes Jazz was concerned with tonight, though, it was the information he knew they must have, otherwise they wouldn’t have shown up like this.
Arriving without notice indicated they’d learned something they wanted no one else to hear, and these girls didn’t trust phones. Not cell phones, landlines, or any other traceable form of communication.
They were paranoid, suspicious, and distrustful. A hell of a combination in two women who were a little on the short side, curvy, and decidedly feminine. They were also damned loyal when it came to those they chose as friends, and willing to fight to the death to protect someone they believed in.
Those traits added to their surprise arrival sent tension racing through his body. Muscles tightened, all his senses went on alert as that gut-deep awareness warned him that their information could be far more important than he could guess.
Closing the door as he stepped to the porch, he let his gaze move between them. They wouldn’t have shown up if it wasn’t important, but there was a hesitancy about them that warned him of their uncertainty in telling him whatever they’d learned.
He’d never seen these two uncertain.
Twilight filled the valley now, not quite dark yet daylight had given its final farewell just before their arrival. Shadows stretched out along the porch, helped along by the heavy vines of honeysuckle that grew thick and heavy along the front of the porch.
Kate and Lara slid along those shadows to the porch swing hanging in front of the windows next to the door while Jazz moved to the chair, his back to the honeysuckle, across from them. He watched the two women silently, sensing the tension emanating from them as they stared at him consideringly. It had been a lot of years since they’d been this uncertain around him.
They were two of the most efficient investigators he’d ever known. They could uncover information others were certain couldn’t be found. Give them a puzzle and it wouldn’t take them long to fit all the pieces in their place, and that was what the job was to them. Each case was a puzzle, Kate had once explained to him. A puzzle that had to be solved.
They weren’t speaking yet. He knew them well enough to know their silence was an indication that whatever they’d learned was either excessively dangerous, guaranteed to piss him off, or both. When it came to the woman calling herself Annie Mayes, he had no doubt it was probably both.
“Is it that bad?” he asked quietly, his gaze flicking between the two of them.
The sisters glanced at each other, sharing some silent communication that only twins have before turning back to him.
“It’s difficult,” Kate answered him as she sat back fully in the heavily cushioned swing and rested her elbow on the arm of the seat while gripping the chain with her hand. “I’ll tell you, Jazz, I don’t think I’ve ever been so torn between information and a friend in my life.”
His jaw clenched with enough force that he wouldn’t have been surprised had he heard his back teeth crack. It was several seconds before he could release the tension enough to speak.
“What’s making it so difficult?” This was one of only a few instances that either woman had hesitated to tell him what he needed to know.
“I’m very uncomfortable with this.” Kate sighed. “I feel like I’m betraying her, even though it’s fairly obvious she distrusted us on sight. What she’s been through, how she’s survived so far, amazes me.”
For all her strength and tough attitude Kate had an incredible soft spot for survivors. Unfortunately he couldn’t afford to allow that soft spot to influence their decision to turn over the information.
“She’s facing a nightmare, Jazz, and it’s about to become your nightmare if you decide to stand behind her. If you’d prefer not, then let us know before we leave. We’ll find her someplace safe to hide. We’ll do our best to protect her.”
The resources the two women had were extensive, he knew, but there wasn’t a chance in hell he was letting Annie go.
Leaning forward, he gave each woman a long, direct look before speaking. “This morning someone tried to run her down in the middle of the street as she left a café.” He deliberately hardened his tone, his expression. “She’s in danger and I will protect her, with or without your help. But, if you hold back what you have and something happens to her—”
“You would never forgive us,” Kate finished for him, her voice heavy as she rubbed at the back of her neck. “God, it’s been years since they attacked…”
Kate broke off and turned to her sister once again. This time it was more than just concern that reflected in her expression. This time, Jazz saw a hint of fear.
“Tell me.” Lara turned back to him, one hand clenched on the arm of the swing, the other in the cushion beneath her. “How well do you know the Maddox clan, Jazz?”
That was the last question he expected to come from either of them. What the hell could his connection to the Maddox clan have to do with any of this?
The question gave birth to a suspicion, though—one he refused to contemplate.
“Why?” He could feel the hairs rising at the back of his neck now, a primitive response to whatever was coming, a warning that whatever it was could change his life forever.
“From what we’ve learned in the past week—” Kate breathed out heavily. “—Cord Maddox, and possibly his two younger brothers as well, head a mountain militia group stretching God only knows how far. They call themselves Kin. The same Kin that murdered her mother and have chased her across just about every state in the nation as well as parts of Canada and Mexico. They’re tenacious.”
Yes, the Kin were tenacious, merciless, and thorough. Most were former military, all were from the mountains that bred and nurtured them, and every damned one of them inducted into the Kin was bound by loyalty, and in many cases by blood, to the Maddox clan.
How Kate and Lara had gotten so much as a whisper of information concerning them was surprising. The information they had was damned unbelievable.
Every muscle in his body tightened to a breaking point. Jazz could feel the punch line coming and the implications of it had his senses stilling while a cold, murderous rage began to simmer inside his soul.
“The night her mother died she was rescued by her uncle, but not before she was shot. She was only sixteen. Since that night, from what we’ve uncovered, she was nearly killed in three other attacks over the past ten years. Rumor is, two years ago they found her uncle in a Chicago warehouse where he was brutally tortured for information on her whereabouts. They say he died without ever admitting who she was, or where she was. His body was never found, and she was never seen nor heard from again. Now we know why. He sent her to hide right beneath their noses.”
Kate and Lara watched him, their gazes expectant, wary. Did they think he’d have already spat a name out? No, because the only name he could come up with he dared not allow himself to voice. Rousing hope even enough to voice her name and learn he was wrong was more than he wanted to face. It was far more than he could bear to risk.
He shook his head, swallowing tightly.
No. He wouldn’t let himself consider it …
But still, his breath felt suspended in his chest, fury, pride, and disbelief ripping through him.
“Who is she?” He knew, God, in his gut he knew. Just as he’d known the first night he met her as Annie Mayes. When he’d stared into hazel eyes and knew the color was wrong. The hairs on the back of his neck had lifted then as well.
Once again the two women glanced at each other, obviously uncertain how to proceed.
“Jazz…” Lara spoke up, obviously hesitating.
“I asked you a fucking question.” He came out of his chair, his hands plowing through his hair as he stalked to the end of the porch, his fingers gripping the railing in a desperate grip.
He turned back to them slowly. “The two of you owe me, Kate,” he reminded her. “Don’t think you can hold back on this.”
“Dammit, Jazz…”
“Answer the fucking question. Who is she?” he snarled, suspicion and blind fury surging through him.
* * *
Kenni stood perfectly still, silent at the side of the door that hadn’t quite closed securely.
There was no way to save the situation, she thought. Kate and Lara Blanchard had brought the truth and there was no way to keep that truth from Jazz now.
Her fists clenched at her side.
Every fear she’d lived with every day of her life for the past two years rose inside her, tormenting her with the knowledge of what could happen now. He could betray her to the Kin, or he would die for her at their hand. Once he learned the truth, he’d realize that, too, and she wasn’t certain she could bear it if his choice was betraying her. But neither could she bear it if he died for her.
She should have never returned to Loudoun. Surely there was some other part of the world where she could have hidden. With the identity in place and already established by the real Annie Mayes, there must have been a safe place to exist other than here.
She hadn’t wanted to exist, though, she realized. She hadn’t wanted to keep running, being found, watching friends die. She hadn’t wanted to continue living a lie and she hadn’t wanted to die never knowing if the family she had loved had ordered their mother’s and sister’s deaths.
But neither had she wanted Jazz to know the truth. Not yet. Not now.
How had he known she wasn’t really Annie Mayes? What had she done to make him suspicious? And what was she going to do now? Because she knew there was no way to keep the truth from him.
* * *
A sudden awareness of her had Jazz turning his gaze from Kate and Lara as the kitchen door pushed open and she stepped to the porch.
Darkness shrouded her, wrapped around her. What little light was available allowed him to glimpse the pain and fear in her expression, though, and the sight of it had every protective instinct he possessed rising hard and fast inside him.
The twins rose slowly to their feet, surprised, more than a little nervous as they stared between Jazz and the woman he’d known as Annie.
“How did I give myself away?” she asked the twins. The fear he heard in her voice stripped him to his soul.
From the moment he’d met her something had stilled inside him, going alert, waiting, watching. Aching for her.
Somehow, he’d known, Jazz realized. He had known who she was, he just hadn’t wanted to see it. Admitting it seared him with guilt and the knowledge he’d failed her.
“You didn’t give yourself away,” Lara told her softly before Jazz could answer her. “It was the Kin that gave you away. Cord Maddox’s curiosity tipped someone off, I assume. His search into Annie Mayes has caused several other searches from what we’ve learned. Each of those searches turned up the same information we found.”
“That Annie Mayes is actually in China,” she answered. “Wonderful.” She turned to Jazz. “Why would Cord give a damn about some schoolteacher?”
Cord’s suspicious nature was well known. He would have wanted to know who was teaching any child he’d taken under his protection.
They were all watching him now, waiting for an answer.
He was going to kill Cord, it was that simple. And if he learned the other man knew or even suspected who she was, then he would make what the Kin could do look like a picnic.
“Kenni,” he whispered, knowing—God, could it be true? “Kenni…”
A bitter smile tipped her lips. “You should have just let me leave earlier, Jazz,” she replied. “It would have been so much easier for both of us.”
Oh, he really didn’t think so.
“Kenni.” Lara shifted restlessly at the comment, forestalling Jazz’s instinctive rejection. “They know you’re still alive and they know where you are, but running isn’t going to save you. You already know that.”
Jazz kept himself still, silent. The rage coursing through him was like a fever, a furious, burning surge of such force it was all he could do to remain standing in place.
“No, but it would save those I care about, Lara,” Kenni stated as she acknowledged Lara’s argument, bitterness filling her voice. Shoving her hands into the pockets of the capris she wore, she stared back at Jazz. “They killed Gunny.” Her voice almost broke. “I came back to the warehouse and there was so much blood—” Turning her head she stopped, one hand lifting to cover her lips before she drew in a hard breath. “They will kill anyone who tries to help me.”
Her shoulders straightened then, her slight body giving a small, almost imperceptible shudder before she stilled it. God he wanted to see her face, her eyes. He wanted those contacts out, he wanted the color out of her hair. He wanted to see the woman she had become, the woman who had been stolen from him.
There was no getting those years back, no way to take the horror of what she had lived from her memories. That innocence was gone forever, but the woman was still here. She was here and she was alive, and by God he intended to make certain she stayed alive.
“Kate, Lara, you can bunk in the guest room,” he growled at the other two women as he stomped across the porch, gripped Kenni’s arm, and despite her instinctive attempt to break free pulled her into the house.
“What are you doing?” There were no tears, no anger, just hard determination in her voice now. “Let me go, Jazz.”
Let her go? Yeah, he was going to get right on that.
“Shut the fuck up. And stop fighting me or I swear to God, Kenni, I will paddle your ass.”
* * *
This was the second time he’d made that threat. She was getting rather tired of it, Kenni thought dismally as Jazz all but dragged her through the kitchen, television room, then up the short flight of stairs to the master suite at the top.
The bedroom door slammed behind him, the crack of wood against wood sending an involuntary flinch through her body. The moment he released her she swung around to face him, a blistering tirade on her lips until she glimpsed his expression. It was so tight, so hard, it could have been hewn from marble. The fury raging through him burned in his eyes, though. They were brilliant, like a faceted gem slicing into her before he walked away.
Eyes wide, staring at the apparition stalking across the hardwood floor of the bedroom to the French doors, Kenni couldn’t help but draw in a hard, fortifying breath. Throwing the doors open he stalked out to the deck, his arms extended, fingers gripping the railing before him as he stared into the darkness beyond.
The deck stretched out from the bedroom, the railing surrounding it securely. The only way to reach it was from the bedroom. There were no steps, no access period to the patio below. Now, this was a feature she hadn’t thought of. The deck also shaded the patio outside the living room where Marcus and Essie and their pups often played.
Laying her hands on the railing as she stood several feet from him, Kenni stared down at the water, sadness washing over her. Large flat stones filled the perimeter of the pool, just like a pond. Just as she had dreamed when she was younger.
He’d built the house she’d dreamed of, the pool she’d longed for. The gazebo by the water, the small dock, just as she’d described to him so long ago.
“Why did you do this, Jazz?” she whispered. “Build everything as I dreamed?”
Tension poured from him. It vibrated from him and thickened the air until it felt smothering.
“Why didn’t you contact me?” His voice grated with fury. A fury that lashed at her, tightened her chest, and reminded her of all the nights she had dreamed of contacting him, dreamed he came for her, rescued her. The fact that he hadn’t answered her question became buried by so many emotions, so many memories.
How many nights had she cried for him, cried for her mother, her family? How often had she cried for the brothers she had trusted before the bodyguards sent with her and her mother destroyed her life?
She’d learned fast that the black knights far outweighed the white ones, and damsels in distress were just screwed. She’d learned that the night she found Gunny lying in a pool of his own blood.
“You once told me there are no knights in shining armor,” she whispered. “And I’ve realized, I’m no Cinderella … I couldn’t contact you, I couldn’t let you know, because I refused to be the cause of your death as well.”
She smoothed her hand over the railing, noticing the wood was free of roughness. It had been sanded, stained, and treated until no chance of harm existed from stray splinters. If only there were a way to smooth life so easily.
Jazz turned to her slowly, towering over her, his expression still livid. If he’d come out here to cool down or to get a handle on the fury, he’d obviously failed.
Kenni jumped to move back, but she was too slow and a heartbeat later his fingers were locked around her upper arms as he glared down at her, the blue of his eyes so bright he was frightening.
“Jazz…”
“Why the fuck didn’t you contact me?” he repeated. “Why, Kenni? Why didn’t you let me know you were alive?”
His voice didn’t rise, it roughened, grated, the sound of it more intimidating than she wanted to admit.
“You don’t understand, Jazz,” she whispered. “I couldn’t…”
“You wouldn’t,” he snapped. “Ten years, Kenni. You could have called me, or Cord…”
“No…” She would have never called Cord, Deacon, or Sawyer. And she sure as hell wouldn’t have called her father.
“Why, damn you?” The guttural tone of his voice had her breath. “Tell me why!”
“Jazz, please don’t,” she whispered, shaking her head, trying to pull free of him.
“Tell me why, damn you. Why?” His voice rose just enough to assure her his anger was slipping its leash. Not that she feared he would hurt her, but she did fear what he might do if all that excellent control he possessed slipped free.
“Because you’re Kin. You’re Kin and I couldn’t be sure you wouldn’t go to Cord.” The cry tore free of her, ten years of hopeless, aching regret and loss, ten years of having everything and everyone she trusted taken away from her. Her throat was so tight she could barely speak, her heart racing with fear and pain and the overwhelming sense that she was no longer in control.
Releasing her, his fingers lifting one by one until he was no longer touching her, until he could step away from her as though he didn’t trust himself to be close, Jazz stared at her in disbelief for a moment before his expression hardened.
“Because you didn’t trust me.” His voice was harder, no longer filled with heat or even anger.
“I trusted you.” Damn, her hands were shaking. Pushing them into the pockets of her capris, she stared back at him, wary of the steely gleam in his gaze now. “But I trusted Kent, Jimmy, and Greg as well. They were family, cousins I’d known all my life, men my brothers sent to watch over Mom and me.”
The horror of that night was like a scar inside her soul. She could still feel the punch of that bullet as it tore into her shoulder, shredding her flesh and sending her to her knees as she tried to run. The smell of the smoke, the heat of the flames … the sight of her fragile, beautiful mother hanging limply, held upright only by Greg’s hands around her throat.
“Gunny saved me that night. He was Momma’s half brother, she said no one knew about him. He gave up his whole life trying to find out who kept sending my family to kill me.” She couldn’t help the bitter, agonized laugh that left her lips. “My family, Jazz. It was always family, always Kin sent to kill me. Men at my brothers’ command.” The sneer that echoed in her voice wasn’t intentional, but fitting. “And you think I should have called you? How was I to know you wouldn’t call Cord, no matter what I told you? Because I knew, just as I know now, how you trust him.”
“Cord isn’t behind this, Kenni,” he bit out, his arms going across his chest as she stared back at him in disbelief.
“And you would be willing to bet my life on that?” Stepping back from him, Kenni watched him carefully now, remembering where his loyalties lay.
He was Kin.
From an early age he’d been marked as part of the militia network. His mother had been Kin, as well as his uncle before they were killed just after Jazz’s fifth birthday. The foster system might have raised him, but the Kin had ensured he’d eventually ended up with a family willing to nurture him.
A family sworn to the Kin as well.
His ties to the group were too strong, his loyalties to them too deep.
“I wouldn’t bet your life on anything or anyone. Not then or now,” he snapped, disgust coloring his voice as well as his expression. “But I know the man Cord’s become just as I remember the man who grieved for his mother and his sister until we didn’t think he’d recover himself again. The twins were little better.”
Frustration tightened his face, gleamed in his eyes. He was torn, loyalty to the Kin and to friendship suddenly in conflict. And Kenni wasn’t certain which would win.
“The man Cord has become doesn’t matter,” she retorted, the ache of being unable to trust the men she had loved from the day of her birth like a dagger in her heart. “Even if he isn’t involved, the fact is that until he learned I wasn’t really Annie Mayes, there had been no threats against me. Now, within an hour of having been face-to-face with him, I was attacked again.” Turning away she stalked into the bedroom once again, rubbing at her arms to dispel the chill racing over them, the sense of rising danger heading her way. “I saw the driver. I can’t place his face.” Turning back to Jazz, she found it difficult to meet the intensity of those blue eyes. “But I’ve seen him before, a long time ago, and he’s Kin. And all Kin get their orders from Cord, Deacon, or Sawyer Maddox. My brothers.”
Even now, ten years later, that knowledge was like acid eating through her soul.
Her brothers. Only four men could give the order to harm her or her mother. Those four men were her father and three brothers. Only they had the power to give a kill order.
“I don’t care where the orders are supposed to come from, Kenni,” he ground out, the fury in his voice deepening it, giving it a primitive, harsh rasp. “But I’ll tell you right now neither your brothers nor your father was involved. I’d bet my life on it.”
Kenni swallowed tightly and clasped her hands together in front of her. Fear was curdling in her stomach, threatening to bring her dinner back up.
“Will you bet my life on it? Are you going to tell them?” Her voice was faint. It was all she could do to force the words past her lips.
God, he couldn’t do that. She hadn’t been able to prove the identity of the person giving the orders yet. But then it didn’t appear she was going to. Gunny had taught her how to survive, but the investigation process hadn’t been in the lesson plans.
“Your brothers were a mess for months,” he bit out, pushing his fingers through his hair furiously before glaring back at her. “Cord still gets drunk every year on the anniversary of his mother’s death and what he believed was yours. They suffered, Kenni. Guilty men don’t suffer like that.”
He was asking too much of her. Ten years of running, uncertain who to trust or where to run, and he wanted her to just let go of all that?
They wouldn’t care to kill Jazz as well, or Slade, Zack, or Jessie and her unborn baby.
“I can’t take the chance.” She refused to. “They’ve killed anyone willing to help me, Jazz. Friends Gunny trusted, then Gunny as well. All I had left was the identity he put in place for me in case of emergency. I can’t bear to lose anyone else I care about because of this.” Her voice hitched painfully, one hand reaching out to him beseechingly. “You have to let me go…”
“The hell I will.” He was on her before she realized what was happening, his hands gripping her arms again, jerking her to him. “You’re going nowhere, Kenni.”
“Don’t force me to go unprepared, Jazz, please.” The plea was rough, forcing itself past a throat tight with tears. “Don’t make me run like that.”
“Run!” Nose-to-nose, he drew his lips back into a snarl, his gaze burning into hers like laser fire. “I fucking dare you to run. The minute you do, I’ll call those brothers of yours. I’ll tell them everything I know, Kenni, and when they catch up with you there will be hell to pay for thinking, even for a second, they’d ever harm you.”
“And if they get themselves killed instead?” The cry was torn from her, the thought of her brothers hurt, or killed, more than she could bear. “Even if they’re not involved, Jazz, they’re in danger. Just as you, Jessie, Slade, and Zack are in danger if you try to help me.” She gripped his arms desperately. “Let me go!”
“When hell freezes over…”
