Nauti Deceptions

What connections could you have?”



He chuckled at her question. “Poor Rogue. I know it has to be hard to die, sweetheart. I promise, I’ll make sure it doesn’t hurt.” He lifted the gun.



“Look at the pictures, Jonesy. Zeke already knows you’re involved.” She threw her hand out to the table where the pictures were scattered. “Thad Mayes wasn’t stupid. He sent Zeke’s mother pictures. He doesn’t even have all of them here,” she lied. “He went after the others. Don’t you think Thad would have protected himself, even from you?”



He paused, his eyes narrowing as it flickered to the table and the pictures. “I burned those pictures,” he seemed to wheeze.



“He made copies,” she warned him. “Lots of copies, Jonesy. He sent them to Zeke’s mother, and you know he sent them other places. He knew you would betray him, Jonesy. Zeke’s going to know when he finds them all. He’ll know you blew up the bar.



You’re missing now. He’ll notice you’re missing.”



He shook his head slowly. “I covered my ass. Everyone but you heard me say I had to leave this evening. I wasn’t supposed to be there.”



“He’ll know, Jonesy. He knows you were calling me before I arrived here. He’ll figure it out, especially when he finds the other pictures.”



It was a desperate lie, but it was logical to her. Thad had sent Zeke’s mother pictures; he could have sent other copies elsewhere.



“There are no pictures in there of me.” But indecision flickered in his gaze.



Rogue forced a mocking smile to her lips. “But there are, Jonesy. There are several.” She moved back and waved her hand toward the hundreds of pictures scattered over the table. “Just look. He has all he needs to take you down just as the others were taken down.”



She wouldn’t have much time. Rogue fought to keep the thunder of her heart from her ears and to keep panic from setting in. She couldn’t think about John or Natches; she couldn’t let herself sink into the well of despair waiting on her.



She was logical. She could find a way out of this. She searched the room through her peripheral vision and tried to find a means of escape as she backed away from the table, allowing Jonesy to move closer to it.



The basement was cluttered with years of old furniture, clothes, and boxes. There were lamps propped against old tables, a hunting rifle in the other corner, a two-by-four piece of lumber stretched along the back of the couch.



She wished she had a weapon. She should have thought and made Zeke leave one with her. He’d left her here, thinking she was protected, and she had believed she would be.



No, she’d been too shocked to think, too hurt to use her brain rather than her emotions.



The best-laid plans, she thought sarcastically. Zeke had known about the tunnel. He had thought she would be safe, and if by chance she wasn’t, then he had given her a place to hide. He couldn’t have known that anyone else knew about the tunnel, especially Jonesy, because he didn’t trust Jonesy to begin with.



“Crazy fucker,” Jonesy muttered as he riffled through a stack of pictures. “He was always taking these damned pictures. For posterity, he said, and Dayle always laughed and said he had a hold on Thad, that he could keep him in line.” He grimaced tightly as one of the more sexual pictures caught his eye. “He said he didn’t develop the pictures, and Dayle believed him.”



“But you knew better,” she said. “Didn’t you, Jonesy?”



Jonesy grinned. “I knew better. I knew when he left he’d take those negatives with him.



I knew he’d betray us for that little bastard of his and the grandson Zeke wouldn’t let him see. Damn, Zeke hated his old man, ya know?”



“I didn’t know,” she lied again.



Jonesy nodded as a thoughtful look crossed his face. He picked up a picture of him, as a much younger man, with Thad and James Maynard. Zeke and Gene were in the pictures. They were just boys, dressed in camo with wide grins on their faces.



“I guess I’ll have to get rid of James now.” He sighed. “And Gene. That will suck.



Though James is still cowarding like a little girl on his farm. He won’t even go to any of the meetings anymore. He doesn’t want to rebuild what we lost, says he’s too old,” he sneered then. “If he’s too old to fight, then he’s too old to live, wouldn’t you say?”



Rogue backed against the couch as his attention turned back to the pictures. Her fingers curled around the six- foot length of two-by-four that lay on the back of it.



She wasn’t far from him, less than six feet. If she could get a good swing in before he could bring the gun back up, then she might have a chance. That was all she needed, a fighting chance. She refused to stand here like a sacrificial lamb on the altar of his insanity. Freedom League, her ass. Those bastards needed to die anyway. They were all as damned crazy as Jonesy, otherwise they would have never gotten mixed up in such a crazy scheme as taking over the nation.



“He seems smart to me,” she said faintly as her fingers tightened on the wood. “Smarter than you.”



When he turned back to her, she moved. The two-by-four swung for his head before he could react. His arm came up, but not quick enough. He’d taught her what John hadn’t about fighting. He’d taught her how to disarm, how to kick effectively, but more, he’d taught her how to counter a defensive move.



She was short, weak, he’d always said, so he’d taught her to be effective rather than powerful. Using the momentum of her body, her shoulders, she slammed the wood into his shoulder, causing the gun to drop as she kicked out.



The heel of her boot caught his chin as she punched back with the end of the two-by-four into his head. Blood sprayed around her before she dropped the wood and ran for the stairs.



Forget the tunnel, she had no idea where it went. Jonesy was bigger than her, faster; she needed corners and furniture to hide behind, not a tunnel to run through.



She raced up the stairs cursing her boots even as she gloried in the blood they had shed.



She slammed open the basement door as the blast behind her sent a bullet tearing through the wood inches above her head.



Ducking, she slammed the door closed, locked it, then threw a kitchen chair against it before racing to the back door and into the night.



It was dark and foggy as hell as the mist from the lake shrouded the house and the forest surrounding it. The night oozed a heavy blanket of thick fog, so thick it felt smothering as she stumbled around the house and ducked behind the border of evergreen hedges planted around it.



A quick glance at the bike had a sob choking her. The tires were flat. There wasn’t a chance of escaping on it. For the moment, all she had were the hedges.



It was minimal covering, but it was dark, her clothes were dark. Blinking back her tears, she prayed for a chance.



TWENTY-THREE



Breathing in slow and deep, Rogue tried to forceback the panic threatening to rise inside her now that she had escaped the house. Surely it wouldn’t be too hard to hide here for a while. Maybe Jonesy would just leave.



She flinched at the sound of the kitchen door slamming closed.



The night suddenly seemed malevolent and frightening. Fear congealed inside her as a shiver raced up her spine and she strained to see through the thick fog to the land around her.



“Scary, isn’t it, little girl?” Jonesy’s voice was almost conversational as he spoke into the night. “The nights get real dark here in the mountains without the city lights to brighten them. Fog rolls in, and you can’t see what’s behind you, or what’s in front of you. It’s real easy to get lost, or to fall over a cliff. Or even worse, fall in the lake. The water is mighty cold this time of the year, Rogue.”



She shivered at the thought of how cold.



Eyes wide, the breath laboring in her chest, she fought to stay in place rather than to sprint through the night.



“Do you know the direction of the road out of here?” he called out to her. “Have you been here enough times that you’ll be able to stay on the gravel rather than the rocky ground and know where you are?”



She was smarter than that. She knew the difference between a graveled road and rocky ground.



Jonesy chuckled again. “Come on, Rogue. At least I’ll kill you quick. The night will make you suffer.”



God, how could she and her father have been so wrong about him? He wasn’t a friend, he was a monster.



Kneeling behind the thick, heavy hedge, Rogue felt the first tear fall. The night was cold, wet. For the briefest moment she remembered the feel of Zeke’s arms, the warmth of his body. A sob lodged in her throat at the need for that warmth.



She had seen the pain in his eyes earlier when he had realized Gene had betrayed him.



Rogue felt that pain echoing inside her. In one night she had lost the man she loved, a friend, and possibly her brother.



“Rogue.” Jonesy’s hiss was filled with amusement as he drew closer to the hedge. “I know this land, this farm. I know every inch of it and of this house. I wonder if I can guess where you’re hiding.”



Her eyes widened at the sound of his voice, so much nearer now. Struggling to move silently, she edged along the side of the house, careful not to brush against the hedges.



Jonesy was a hunter. Her father had told her about the hunting trips they had taken together and how Jonesy seemed to have almost a second sense of where his prey would hide, which way it would go.



She wasn’t an animal, she told herself, but was there really any difference between a human and an animal that knew it was hunted?



Her heart racing out of control, the blood thundering through her veins, Rogue decided there wasn’t much difference. There was an awareness of death hovering, the tingle of hope, the defiance to live. She had to live. She’d be damned if she would let Jonesy hurt her family further.



“You didn’t ask me how I managed to fool your father and everyone else all these years.” Insidious and filled with hated confidence, Jonesy’s voice threaded through the night again, closer than was comfortable.



“Should I tell you?” he asked her.



Yeah, keep talking, asshole, so I know exactly where you are.



His laughter was low, cruel. “Your father is so grateful to me for warning him of Dayle Mackay’s plans regarding your mother that he doesn’t mind a bit to send me a nice fat check every Christmas. He had no idea it was all a very nicely laid plan to get him the hell out of Somerset. See, your father was a troublemaker and your mother was just too damned high profile to just kill. But it worked out, Rogue. Your father proved to be a nice little resource. Why, the law firm he’s established has even defended several of our members and cleared their good names of the evil acts they committed. He’s a fine man,” he drawled mockingly. “Too bad his daughter isn’t as smart.”



Yeah, too bad his daughter didn’t fire you when she had the chance. Too bad she didn’t just shoot you.



Rogue slid around the back of the house, her eyes straining to see past the fog as she fought to figure out which way to go, where the best place to hide would be.



“I know where you are, Rogue,” he sang through the night. “Just around the corner, just around the bend. Searching for warmth before your life is set to end.”



A poet he wasn’t. But he had a point. She was just around the corner. Unfortunately, she didn’t know a damned thing about Zeke’s home other than the fact that the back deck should be within feet of her.



Moving carefully, fighting to stay silent, she managed to find the porch rails. Gripping the wood tightly, she climbed over the banister before hunkering down and feeling her way across the boards.



Would he expect her to be on the porch?



She followed the rails, found the opening that led back out into the yard, and paused there. Her nails dug into the wood as she listened and fought to hear above the racing of her heart. She couldn’t hear Jonesy. Could he hear her? Her heart was like thunder in her ears, her breathing raspy. Fear was an acrid taste in her mouth now as her stomach clenched with panic.

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