TWENTY-THREE
Janey felt the pinch of something in her shoulder as she turned to Mark. His head had slammed back, his eyes widening in shock, a dart buried in his neck.
Janey reached, scrambling to the side of her seat to jerk it out.
“Mark. Oh God. Mark.”
He was struggling to start the pickup, the motor cranking as Janey felt dizziness sweep over her. The gun fell from her hand and terror swept over her as she heard the locks to the truck disengage. She felt around her shoulder and pulled out a dart embedded there.
“Comm.” Mark’s voice was raspy as he struggled to pull the small, black communications device from his neck. He shoved it at her. “Alex. Move. Move.”
Janey struggled against the darkness trying to sweep over her. Reaching over Mark’s now-still figure, she fought to reengage the locks, to secure the truck. Her shoulder throbbed. She felt as though she were moving through water, weighed down, her vision and her tongue thick as cold air swirled into the vehicle.
“Move, bitch!” Hard hands gripped her hair, jerking her back, pulling her along the seat and through the door until she collapsed to the ground.
Alex would be coming. She knew he was. He would be running. She just had to delay.
“Get up or I kill that little fairy in the truck. Fucking queer. He doesn’t deserve to live.”
The pressure against her scalp was agonizing. Janey cried out with the pain, struggling to her feet and fighting to hang on to the slender communications device Mark had pushed at her.
Her hands were shaking, a sense of vertigo slamming through her as she lowered her head to hide her efforts to tuck the device into the band of her jeans, beneath her shirt.
“God, this was almost too easy.” The voice, disguised somehow, was gloating. “I knew where they’d come in at. I knew where they would park. I was smarter. I was better.”
Janey struggled against the hold as she was dragged through a yard. It was dark, late, for some dumb reason no one on this street had a dog in their backyard; now, how stupid was that?
She could feel the edge of hysterical laughter bubbling in her throat.
“Don’t worry, bitch. He walked right into my hands.” The voice was familiar but she couldn’t place it. She shook her head, praying she had activated the right button on Mark’s communications device and that Alex was able to track her.
If he didn’t track her, she was dead. Hell, she was probably dead anyway.
“If you don’t step it up, I’m going to just shoot you and get it over with,” the voice snapped. “And I would, except that spineless little brat of mine needs to understand success. Stupid little bastard. He’s so fucking weak. Always arguing over what I want to do.”
Augusta Napier, Hoyt’s mother.
Janey could feel her body trying to shut down, her mind fighting to escape the reality of the knowledge. Augusta was a friend of the Mackays. She knew the other woman was ill. Hoyt had said she was sick; everyone knew she had been battling cancer. How had she found the strength to do this?
“Almost there, you little tramp.” Augusta pushed her through a dark, tree-sheltered yard. “Your lover had no idea how close I was, did he? And I outsmarted him. Sometimes it’s just too easy to outsmart a man.”
Janey couldn’t quite make her senses work. She stumbled at the sound of a heavy door lifting, then she was tumbling, falling. She hit the stairs and rolled down them, feeling the painful bite of each strike of wood against her body.
The door was closing then. A cellar door. Many of the houses on this side of town were older, the cellar doors built on an angle outside the house and leading to the basement or storm shelters.
Beneath her cheek was cool cement. The dank, musty smell of the air clogged her nostrils and had her choking, fighting to breathe.
“Come on.” She was picked up and tossed onto a couch. “You need to put some weight on, girl. You’re too skinny.” Then she cackled. “Oh well, too late to put some weight on. Tonight is the last night of the rest of your life.”
The electronic edge of the voice was gone now.
“Augusta, why?” She moaned painfully. “Where’s Hoyt?”
“Hoyt!” Augusta yelled out his name as Janey lifted her head, turning her body enough to allow the link to work, if it was working, for Alex to know where she was.
Another door opened.
“Mother, what you doing in the basement? It’s time for your medication.”
A light snapped on, nearly blinding as Janey jerked in reflex and pulled the edge of her jacket over the communications device.
God, she wanted Alex. She was terrified.
Squinting, fighting the mind-numbing drug that had obviously been in that dart in her shoulder, Janey tracked the other woman in the basement as Hoyt moved slowly down the stairs.
Augusta wasn’t very old. Forty-five or forty-seven, Janey forgot which. A tall, raw-boned woman with sharp cheekbones and dull hazel brown eyes. She had been pretty once, before the death of her husband several years ago in Iraq. Janey had heard Augusta had gone a little crazy at the news of his death. Evidently, it wasn’t just a little crazy.
“Oh, Mother, what have you done?” There was weary resignation in Hoyt’s voice now as he stepped into the basement.
Janey noticed he didn’t get there in a hurry. Not at work, and not here. He moved slowly to the couch and bent beside her, brushing her hair from her face and checking her pupils.
“You drugged her?” he accused.
“Your father’s dart rifle.” Augusta shrugged her shoulders beneath the man’s heavy jacket she wore. “He always said I would never know when I needed to use it. I guess he was right.” Her laughter was evil, slightly crazed.
“Hoyt. Help me,” Janey whispered desperately. “You’re Alex’s friend. Natches’s.”
“Stop trying to use your wiles on him, bitch,” Augusta barked. “Trust me, Hoyt’s not going to listen to you, are you, Hoyt?”
He lifted his head and breathed in roughly, sorrow and weary pain mixed in his expression as he rose to his feet.
He was still wearing the slacks and shirt he’d worn at work. His black leather shoes were dusty and scuffed.
“How long have you not been taking your medication, Mother?” he asked her.
“You sound like your father.” Affection and amusement filled Augusta’s voice. “I don’t need the medication, Hoyt. I just need her dead. That’s all. Kill her and everything will be right again.”
“Do you really want to hurt Alex like that, Mother? I told you; he cares for her.”
Augusta paused, her gaze flicking over Janey. “I helped Alex raise Crista.” She smiled fondly. “Those stupid parents of his were never there to help him or to help him with Crista. I’d watch her if he had to do something of the evenings. Alex is a good boy.” She frowned. “Too good for the likes of you.”
“Alex loves her,” Hoyt stated. “You should see them together, Mother. I think we’re wrong about her.” There was a hint of misery in his expression as he turned away from her. “And Natches, he’s her brother. He loves her like a brother. She doesn’t act like Dayle.”
“We can’t take the chance.” Augusta shrugged her jacket off, revealing a man’s flannel shirt and jeans. She wore military boots, and there was a handgun holstered at her side. “Besides, I didn’t agree to anything.”
“You didn’t take your medicine.”
“Get off my back about the medicine, Hoyt,” she snapped, brushing back her brown hair. “I told you, we can’t let her infect the lives of those we care about. Alex is almost like a brother to me. He hasn’t even come to see me because of her.” A thin finger pointed accusingly at Janey. “And the gossip is already flying. He’ll never make chief of police with that bitch on his arm, and you know it.”
Janey watched Hoyt. She kept her eyes on his face, pleading. He looked saner than his mother, but he looked resigned. As though he knew he couldn’t keep Janey alive.
“Oh, Mother.” Hoyt raked his fingers through his hair as he sat down on an abandoned kitchen chair and glanced back at Janey.
His gaze flickered to her waist, and misery was reflected in his face. He saw the communications device. She knew he did. Her heart was in her throat as he shook his head sadly.
“Hoyt, you know what’s going to happen. We’ve discussed it.”
Augusta meant to kill her and Janey knew it. She could feel her stomach cramping with the fear. Fear for Alex, because she knew he was looking for her. Fear for the child she might be carrying, because if she died, so did the baby Alex wanted so desperately. Desperately enough to pledge himself to her.
“You promised you would let it go.” Hoyt sighed wearily. “After you nearly got caught tossing those bombs in her house, you swore you would let it go.”
“I can’t let it go,” she yelled furiously, her lined face twisting in anger. “I waited at his house with the tranquilizer gun. I wasn’t going to hurt him. He would have slept right through her death. But he had to try to trick me. Him and those queers he’s running with. You saw the pictures, Hoyt. She’s making him just like those two men are. Fucking her ass like some fairy. He’s losing his manhood.”
Augusta paced the basement now. She tried to push the fallen strands of brown hair into the clip at the top of her head, but they kept falling free. Her face was flushed with fury, her hazel eyes were flat, dead. The anger was more a show for Hoyt. The woman facing them was cold. Hard.
“You’re nothing like your father, Hoyt,” Augusta sneered then. “When Jimmy and I were in the Army, he was the strongest man in his group. He taught me everything he knew and he tried to teach you. I tried to teach you. What happened to you?”
Hoyt shook his head. “I’m not a killer, Mother.”
“Your father wasn’t a killer; he was a patriot,” she yelled.
Hoyt stared around the basement, his expression so filled with grief that Janey felt tears fill her eyes. She had always liked Hoyt. He was a hard worker, quiet. But he’d never seemed crazy; he’d never seemed devious.
“Mother was in the Army for a while,” he told her quietly. “Her and Dad worked together sometimes. They were a helluva team.”
Pride transfused Augusta’s face. “Jimmy was so strong, wasn’t he, Hoyt?”
Hoyt nodded. “Yes, Mother, Dad was very strong.”
“Until he died.” Her face twisted in grief, her hazel eyes finally lit with emotion, with pain. “They took him away from us in Iraq. Bitches like her!” She pointed a sharp, thin finger in Janey’s direction. “Traitorous sluts.”
Hoyt looked back at Janey. “They made it look like Father was having an affair.” Bitter knowledge glittered in his eyes. “He was found in a bed in a filthy little hovel with a young Middle Eastern woman. They were both dead.”
Janey swallowed back the bile in her throat.
“Traitorous slut! Black-haired little whore. Your father wouldn’t have touched her, Hoyt. That little tramp lured him there and he killed her for it.” Augusta swung around to Janey. “And her father put her up to it. Just like yours put you up to destroying Alex and Natches.”
Janey shook her head. Everything felt detached, wavy. Whatever had been in that dart, she hadn’t jerked it out fast enough. It was distorting reality, making her weak.
“I did . . .” She swallowed against the thickness in her throat. “I tried to protect Natches. I did what Dayle told me to to protect him.”
“She’s a liar!” Augusta snapped.
Hoyt drew in a deep breath and rose to his feet. “I’ll get your medicine, Mother.”
“Hoyt, don’t betray me.” Augusta slid the weapon from her side and aimed it at her son. “I told you, son, you’re going to have to choose sides. Now’s the time to choose.”
“He’s your son,” Janey whispered tearfully. “Augusta, he’s your only son.”
The other woman swung around to her, eyes blazing now, fury filling them. “Do you think I don’t know that, you little tramp? But every man has to choose sides. His daddy told him that. I know he did.”
Hoyt lowered his head and Janey saw the misery, the knowledge on his face. His mother was insane. As crazy as Dayle Mackay had been.
“Mother.” Hoyt stepped toward her. “Come upstairs with me. Let’s get your medicine and we’ll talk about this. You said it was easier to talk when you take it. Let’s discuss how to do this first.”
For a moment, Augusta’s face was transformed. She looked younger, almost vibrant in her love for her son.
“You were such a disappointment to your father,” she whispered. “But I always loved you, didn’t I, Hoyt? I always took up for you.”
“Yes, you did.” Hoyt blinked against the pain.
“Even when he hit me for it, I defended you, didn’t I, Hoyt?”
He nodded slowly. “You did, Mother.”
She lifted the pistol. “I never realized how right he was,” she sneered then. “You’re pathetic.” And she pulled the trigger.
Janey screamed and launched herself from the couch. Stumbling, she threw herself at Augusta as the gun discharged and Hoyt slammed backward.
“You bitch!” Augusta backhanded her as Janey scrambled to hold on to her gun arm.
“Mother, stop!” Hoyt’s voice was weak. At least he was alive.
Janey gripped Augusta’s arm, fighting to hold it out of the line of fire in Hoyt’s direction, or hers.
Augusta wasn’t as strong as she looked. She was angry, though, and Janey was drugged. She was crying, fighting to breathe, when she felt herself jerked back and heard a weapon discharge again.
She watched the dark, neat little hole that bloomed in the center of Augusta’s head as she flew into the shelves behind her, then slowly slid to the floor, leaving a trail of blood on the wood.
“Janey. Baby. Oh God. I’m sorry.” Alex was holding her, turning her into his chest, one broad hand pressing against the back of her head. “I got here as fast as I could, baby. Hell. I’m sorry. Janey, I’m so sorry.”
She held on to him, feeling the weakness she had been battling rushing through her now.
“I think I’m gonna pass out,” she mumbled.
She felt her legs go first. Her arms. She slumped against him, darkness closing around her as she heard him curse.
“She’s fine.” Mark was still groggy as he checked Janey after Alex laid her back on the couch. The adrenaline he had managed to inject into himself after Janey was dragged away had kept him conscious, but weak. He’d managed to drag another communications device from his bag and follow Janey’s assailant on foot while directing Tyrell and Alex his way.
He’d been hit with the dart first, and a moment later the second had pierced the side of Janey’s shoulder. Mark had seen her jerk the dart from her arm after pulling the one from his neck. It could have killed him. She had saved Mark, and she had saved herself. And Alex hadn’t been there when she needed him. He’d never forget that.
Outside the house they heard the scream of tires, the slam of doors, a siren blasting through the night. Hell, this was happening too damned often in Somerset. Fucking stalkers, homegrown terrorists, and insane citizens.
“Fuck.” Alex looked to where Tyrell was checking on Hoyt.
Augusta had shot her son in the chest, though not directly through the heart. Alex hoped one of those sirens was an ambulance.
“I tried to stop her.” Hoyt’s muffled sob was painful to hear. “She went crazy when Dad died. As long as she was medded up . . .” He coughed. The sound wasn’t pleasant. “As long as she stayed on the pills, she was okay.”
“Rest, son,” Tyrell told him gently. “Help is coming.”
“I told her about the stairs at the restaurant, in the banquet room,” he wheezed. “Then she started slipping in there when no one was looking. When she used the bombs, I knew. I couldn’t stop her. I should have said something.”
“Hoyt, hang on,” Tyrell growled. “You have to hang on for us, son. We need to know what happened.”
“Nothing can help. Journal. My journal has it all,” Hoyt whispered and coughed again. The rattle in his breathing had Alex cursing. He moved to where Tyrell was trying to stabilize him, and watched as Hoyt stared back at him. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. A second later, Hoyt Napier took his last breath. The young man’s face lost its somber, worried expression. It filled with a sense of peace as Alex hunkered down beside him and glanced at Tyrell.
The other man’s face was heavy, lined.
“This is why I wanted out,” Tyrell whispered heavily. “Kids dying in my arms. Fucking crazies filling the goddamned world.” Anger colored his voice. “This is why we left, Alex.”
Alex gripped the other man’s shoulder before rising and making room for Mark. The other two men didn’t touch. They didn’t embrace or cry. But the bond between them was so damned strong it was almost humbling. And for a second, just a second, Tyrell let his head rest against Mark’s hard shoulder as they stared at Hoyt.
As raised voices and the creak of the cellar door were heard, they straightened and rose to their feet, tucking their weapons out of sight. State police officers were the first to rush into the cellar, followed by a harried Timothy. Behind him were the Mackays and the sheriff.
Timothy moved straight to Janey and stared down at her, his expression creasing in concern, eyes twitching as his lips thinned and a sense of fear filled him. Alex had never seen Timothy frightened.
“Janey!” Natches was pushing through, his expression tormented, his green eyes dark with rage and worry as Dawg, Rowdy, and Ray followed behind.
Alex lifted her from the couch. “She’s drugged,” he told them, refusing to give her to Natches as he tried to take her from Alex’s hold. “Is the ambulance outside?”
“This way, Major.” The first officer waved him back to the cellar doors. “Agent Cranston filled us in on the way. We have an ambulance waiting on the street.”
An ambulance, several more cruisers, and every damned citizen on at least four city blocks were crowding the area now.
As he carried Janey to the waiting ambulance, he wondered if there was any damned way to get her to close that fucking restaurant down long enough for him to get his head back on straight.
He’d nearly lost her. Hell had opened up in his mind when he’d heard her being taken and realized he wasn’t close enough to protect her, that he might not be able to get to her in time.
The communications device she had taken with her had been erratic, staticky, making it hard to determine where she was. But she had kept her head. She’d used the device the best way she knew how. He was going to have to teach her the proper way.
As the EMTs moved aside to allow him to lay her on the gurney, he detailed the possible injuries and handed them the dart he had picked up off the truck seat earlier. He touched her hair, kissed her brow, then pressed his head beside hers as he fought the fear tearing through him, even now.
He had promised to keep her safe. Sworn it. And still, she had nearly died. He had nearly let her be taken from him because he hadn’t stayed with her. Because he had let someone else watch over her.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Natches growled behind him.
Alex lifted his head as an IV was being attached to Janey’s arm and the medics prepped her for transportation to the hospital.
“I left her,” Alex whispered, shaking his head.
“With a damned able soldier,” Natches argued back, his hair mussed, his eyes still wild. “She’s alive, dammit. And when she wakes up, she’s not going to need a guilt-ridden lover. And she better fucking have a fiancé, not some son of a bitch ready to walk out on her.”
Alex’s lips twitched and he shook his head slowly. “Not in a million years, Natches. Not a million years or a thousand stalkers. She’s mine.”
Natches’s eyes narrowed on him. “You love her?”
“She owns me.”
Natches smiled. “I’d suggest telling her the love part. Those are the only words women understand, you know.”
Alex shook his head. “She knows. It goes deeper.”
Natches snorted. “Dumb-ass. Tell her.” Then he sighed and reached out to touch Janey’s limp hand. “Tell her, man. Because I think its something we both forgot to do.”
Teach me how to love, Janey. He’d asked her that once, and he hadn’t realized just exactly how both of them had misinterpreted what he did feel for her.
It went deeper than anything Alex had ever imagined love could be. Calling it love seemed almost trite, like saying he merely enjoyed being a Ranger when it had been his life for so long.
Until Janey. Janey was his life now, and his dedication to her went far beyond the dedication he had given his unit, his career, or even his life. It went beyond love. But if she needed the words, then he’d make sure she got them.