The Bride and the Mercenary Read online

  Too swiftly for Watkins to prevent her, she stepped in front of him. Behind her she heard Malone’s quickly indrawn breath, heard the rustle of grass as he started to move toward them and then checked himself.

  “Get the hell out of the way, Lee,” he said in a strained voice. “Noah, stay cool. I’m raising my hands where you can see them, okay? For the love of God, Lee, get out of his line of fire!”

  “He went back.” Ignoring Malone, Watkins addressed her, his tone forceful. “After the two of you saw Paul, Malone left you in the car and went back, didn’t he? Maybe it was only for a few minutes, maybe he told you he had one last question for him, but he had to have left you and gone back to the house. That’s when he did it. It had to have been something like that.”

  “We left Paul alive. We both got in the car at the same time, and we drove away together,” she said flatly. “Up until a couple of minutes ago, I thought you’d killed Paul. But Malone was the only one you were willing to gun down in cold blood, wasn’t he?—and then only because you’d been convinced he was a monster who couldn’t be allowed to live.”

  “He is. My source was unimpeachable, for God’s sake! I was given hard proof—”

  “Your source was the Executioner, no matter who he presented himself as.” Her eyes held his. “He killed Paul.”

  “I’m willing to turn myself in to the authorities as long as you can guarantee Ainslie and I get there alive, Noah. If you don’t trust me on that, go ahead and pull the trigger.” Dropping his hands slightly, but still keeping them in sight, Malone stepped forward, coming between her and Watkins.

  “But after you do, get Ainslie in the car and drive like hell. Throw yourself on the mercy of the FBI if you have to, but insist on protection for the two of you. This looks too much like a trap to me.”

  “Don’t come any closer, Malone.” Watkins’s jaw tightened. “I can’t afford to believe you, dammit! If any of what you’re saying is true, then that night in the alleyway—”

  Ainslie saw the pale eyes darken in denial.

  “You gunned down an innocent man?” Malone’s smile was bleak. “I don’t think you have to worry about that. I don’t remember much of my past, but these hands aren’t totally clean. Blood has a habit of sticking to a man, no matter how hard he tries to scrub it off.”

  “You were a soldier. Whatever blood you spilled was spilled in the line of duty, for God’s sake.” Tension rang in Ainslie’s voice like a steel cable stretched taut. “You were following orders, Malone. You can’t blame yourself for—”

  “Whose orders were you following, Noah?” Ignoring the gun in the other man’s hand, Malone moved closer to him.

  The bulky tweed jacket made his shoulders seem even broader than they were, Ainslie thought, and with the heavy streaking of gray dulling the black of his hair he looked like a stranger. She was suddenly filled with an obscure apprehension.

  “You’re putting it all together in your mind, aren’t you?” Malone’s voice was soft. “And one or two things just don’t add up. Maybe at the time you wouldn’t allow yourself to examine them too closely, because by then you were committed to hunting me down. But when he told you I’d killed Paul, you had to wonder how he knew about the crumpled fender on the car I was driving. Some part of you knew he could only have gotten that information from Cosgrove, just before he put a slug into the back of his head.”

  “There was a man taking his dog for a late-night walk,” Watkins said slowly. “He told the police he’d seen a car with a couple in it, speeding away a few blocks from the scene.”

  “Go through the police reports yourself. I’m betting you won’t find anything about a witness in them.” A corner of Malone’s mouth lifted ironically. “The dog’s a nice detail, though.”

  From her vantage point, Ainslie saw the doubt grow in Watkins’s eyes, saw the gun waver briefly in his hand. Then his expression closed again and she knew that he was through listening to them. He gave his head a quick, hard shake.

  “No, Malone, I only got one thing wrong. The girl’s in this with you. But it all ends here.”

  Even as he spoke, Ainslie saw Watkins’s gun start to come up toward the man directly in front of him, and sharp terror tore through her.

  “Get down, Lee!”

  Even as Malone shouted the hoarse command he was moving swiftly, eliminating the last few inches between him and Noah Watkins, knocking him backward against the car. Ainslie saw his hand close powerfully over the other man’s, saw Watkins struggling to regain control of his gun, his mouth opening in a rictus of pain as Malone slowly forced his wrist back.

  Then she heard a nauseating snapping sound, and her own hands flew to her mouth in sick horror as Malone wrenched the gun from Watkins’s suddenly useless grip. His broken wrist canted at an unnatural angle, with a desperate lunge, Watkins tried to get away. Malone’s bulkier frame easily body-checked him, ramming him back against the car and momentarily blocking the Agency operative from her view.

  The shot was explosively loud. Malone looked over his shoulder at her, his face etched with some strong emotion she couldn’t identify, and past him she saw Watkins’s pale gaze staring sightlessly up at the sky as his body slumped sideways.

  She looked at Malone in shocked disbelief.

  “But…but you’d disarmed him!” Her voice was a high, unsteady thread. “Dear God, Malone, why did you kill him?”

  He never answered her. Moving so fast she didn’t even have time to react, he leaped at her, still holding the gun. A split second later his body smashed into hers with all the force of a battering ram. Ainslie felt the breath leaving her lungs, felt herself falling with him—and heard the second shot ring out from somewhere above them.

  When he’d taken her down with him, Malone had tucked her head into his chest. Now he released her, and as he met her gaze she saw the blood running into his right eye from a gash on his forehead. He wiped the back of his hand across it, and stared grimly at her.

  “He must have hit the headlight. We’ve got to get out of here, Lee.” He flicked a quick glance toward the house on the rise. “He’s got the high ground, and a hell of a lot more firepower than I do. We don’t stand a chance if he disables the car.”

  “I—I thought it was you who—” She didn’t finish her sentence.

  “I know you did.” There was no recrimination in his tone. “But that doesn’t matter right now. We’re going to crawl to the other side of the car and get in the passenger-side door. When we do, I want you to stay hunkered down on the floor until I tell you it’s safe to get up, understand?”

  Ainslie nodded, her eyes wide and stricken with guilt. She saw him gaze irresolutely at her for a second, and then his mouth came down on hers in a brief, hard kiss.

  “Don’t look like that, honey,” he said softly. “I don’t blame you for thinking what you did.”

  “It was only for a moment, Seamus,” she said, her voice an anguished whisper. “Only for a moment.”

  “Don’t think about it anymore. Think about getting out of this alive, okay?” The blood trickled down near his eye again, but he ignored it. “The keys are still in the ignition. If anything happens to me, don’t stick around. He’s got a telescopic sight up there with him, and once he sees I’m down he’ll come for you. Get to Sully if you can and tell him everything. He’ll know what to do.”

  His face was bloody and streaked with dirt, and the tweed jacket was stained dark crimson—with Noah Watkins’s blood, she realized sickly. But the eyes were the same as always. They would never change, she thought. They would never waver, never look at her with anything but love.

  “Remember, stay low.”

  With one last urgent glance at her, Malone started crawling on his belly around the back of the car. Ainslie followed suit, copying his movements exactly. He’d done this before, she thought distractedly, feeling the tall stalks of grass that only minutes ago had looked feathery and delicate razoring her hands as she pushed her way through it. This had b
een a way of life for him—taking cover under fire, reacting instantly, facing death on a daily basis. No wonder he had survived the Agency’s hunt for him.

  The Executioner had picked the wrong man to frame, she thought as they neared the passenger-side door and she saw him reach up for the handle.

  This time the explosive crack was coupled with the sound of shattering glass, and she instinctively buried her face in the ground. She could taste dirt, she thought faintly—dirt and something else, something warm and slightly salty.

  “Lee!” Malone was beside her, his expression agonized as she lifted her head. “Were you hit? Dear God, Lee, say something!”

  “It’s just my cheek, I think,” she managed. “A stone must have ricocheted and hit me. I—I’ve gotten worse in the ring, Malone.”

  “Screw this. I’m getting you out of here, goddammit—now.”

  His eyes dark with anger, he rose to his full height, wrenched open the car door, and slid across the seat and behind the wheel, not bothering to shield himself. Swiftly he turned the key in the ignition, and the car roared instantly to life. As she scrambled to her feet he leaned over and pulled her in. She only just managed to close the door behind her before he threw the vehicle into reverse.

  “Stay low, honey,” he muttered, slinging his arm across the seat back and looking over his shoulder as he trod down heavily on the gas pedal. Ainslie lurched forward as the car shot backward.

  “Screw that, Malone.” She looked up at the pile of gray stone, and thought she saw the wink of a reflection on the upper floor. She concentrated on it rather than Watkins’s body sprawled on the dirt track in front of them. “He’s got us on the ropes, and that’s bad enough. I never huddled on the mat for any opponent, and I’m not about to start now.”

  “Then brace yourself, O’Connell.” He gave her a reluctant grin. “This is where it gets interesting.”

  His foot jammed down on the brake and instantly the rear end of the sedan slewed sickeningly sideways. Through the windshield in front of her the landscape blurred with merry-go-round dizziness, as if it was revolving around them. She flinched instinctively as she heard the flat crack of another shot ring out, and saw tatters of white bark fly from the trunk of a birch tree.

  It looked like a miniature flag of surrender, she thought distractedly. But no one was surrendering here.

  The car rocked to a halt, and she was thrown against the door, but before she had even caught her breath Malone released the clutch. Gravel sprayed up behind them as the sedan’s tires fought for purchase, found it, and propelled them forward.

  “If it’s going to happen, it’ll happen now,” he said tightly, his eyes on the road ahead. “He can track his next shot now that we’re following the road.”

  The slender birch that had been hit had been the only tree that could have afforded them some cover. Ainslie sat rigidly in her seat, waiting for the shot that would end either her life or Malone’s, and feeling as if the sedan had a huge bull’s-eye painted on the side of it. Ahead of them chips flew from a boulder as the Executioner’s next bullet slammed into it.

  The birch had been only five or six inches in diameter, at most, she thought numbly. It was one thing to hear of the assassin’s skill, but seeing it in deadly action made it chillingly clear just how formidable their opponent was. The birch hadn’t been a lucky shot, or a misfire—the man had deliberately chosen a target that he’d known they would see, as a demonstration to his quarry that he could pick them off anytime he chose.

  So why hadn’t he?

  Even before the question had fully formed in her mind, she knew the answer. She turned to Malone, her gaze dark with dawning anger.

  “It’s not going to happen.” Her pronouncement was flat with conviction. “He never had any intention of taking us out here. He’s been playing cat and mouse with us, Seamus.”

  The glance he threw her was startled. Then she saw his grip on the steering wheel tighten. “Because if he’d wanted to kill us, he would have by now,” he said harshly. “Of course. The bastard’s been jerking us around, dammit!”

  He looked past her to the ruins of the stone mansion behind them just as one last shot lodged harmlessly in the massive trunk of an old oak they’d just passed, and then they were cresting the hill leading away from the lake, the woods around them thickening. Malone allowed the sedan’s speed to ease off slightly.

  “He meant to kill Noah, not you. That wasn’t an accident, was it?” She heard the foolishly high note in her own voice, and realized she was trembling.

  “It wasn’t an accident. It was marksmanship.” His jaw was rigid. “But why, for God’s sake? Why not finish the job and take us out, too?”

  “Paul said he likes kicking the anthill and watching what happens,” she said slowly. “How much fun would he get by destroying the anthill all at once? He sees this as a game, Malone—a game where he makes up all the rules, and we have to figure them out as we go along.”

  They’d reached the intersection of the dirt track and the paved road that led back to the highway, and as they came to a stop in a cloud of dust he looked over at her.

  “It’s not a game, Lee. That’s not how he sees it at all.” He shook his head. “He wants to pick the time and place to kill us, and he wants us to be fully aware that we’re going to die. No, he doesn’t see this as a game.”

  His hands tightened on the steering wheel until his knuckles whitened. He stared at her grimly.

  “He sees this as a sport. And today he officially opened hunting season.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “This is going to sting a little.”

  Ainslie uncapped the bottle of antiseptic she’d bought on the way to the motel, wrinkling her nose at the sharp scent. While Malone had sat on the edge of the bath, she’d carefully tweezed out every sparkling sliver of glass she’d been able to see. Now he winced as she dabbed the pungent cotton pad at the cracked rivulet of dried blood nearest his eye.

  “For crying out loud,” he muttered. “That doesn’t sting a little. It hurts like hell.”

  “If you don’t want me to save your sight, just say so,” she said. “I’m sure you’ll look dashing with a patch over one eye.”

  Her sharpness was a mask for her worry. She threw the cotton square into the wastebasket by her feet and automatically pressed a new one to his temple, her lips tightening as she saw fresh crimson staining through.

  “It’s deep?” Malone’s open eye glanced up at her.

  “Very deep,” she said shortly. “I know what you said about going to a doctor, Seamus, but it needs stitches.”

  “Then I hope you’ve got a needle and thread.” His tone brooked no argument. “A hospital’s completely out of the question.”

  He was right, she knew. And since their trail had been picked up either at Sullivan Investigations or at the apartment itself this morning, neither of those places was an option for them, either. It had been by the sheerest good fortune that she’d remembered the Galway Motel and its owner, Billy Dare, a retired trainer who’d carried a torch for Aunt Kate for years.

  At the thought of her aunt’s old friend, a solution came to her.

  She grabbed Malone’s wrist and placed his hand on the cotton square by his eye. “Keep that there and don’t move,” she commanded. “If we can’t get a doctor for you, you’ll have to settle for the next best thing.”

  “A veterinarian?” he asked suspiciously.

  She gave him a quelling look. “No. But that’s still a possibility, so don’t knock it.”

  Before he could protest any further, she was out of the bathroom. A moment later she was ringing through to the motel’s main office where she’d checked in only half an hour ago. As she hung up, she saw Malone walk unsteadily into the room.

  “I’m still holding the damn gauze,” he said, forestalling her. He sat heavily on the edge of the lumpy but scrupulously clean bed, his face paler than normal. “This Dare, Lee, can you trust him?”

  “Billy cou
ld see me shoot a man in cold blood, and he wouldn’t blow the whistle on me,” she said, worry etching her expression as she took in his pallor. She saw his raised eyebrow and smiled reluctantly. “Well, maybe I’m exaggerating just a little,” she conceded. “But yes, I trust him. He and Aunt Kate go back a long way.”

  “I’d like to meet your aunts.” His gaze held hers. “Somehow we didn’t do much socializing before, did we, Lee?”

  “I think we came up for air a couple of times.” Her own eyes darkened in remembrance and she smiled at him. “But we did seem to stay in bed an awful lot, Malone.”

  “And this time we seem to be getting shot at an awful lot.” He looked away. “Maybe you should cut your losses while you still can, honey.”

  “And miss all this?” Gesturing expansively at the room around them, she kept her tone light. “No way.”

  Malone’s jaw set stubbornly. “I mean it, Lee. Your brother could assign a bodyguard to you until all this blows over, and—”

  To Ainslie’s relief, a sharp rap on the unit’s door cut off the rest of his sentence. Her movements suddenly jerky, she turned from him, feeling as if she’d just gotten a reprieve.

  “Hey, doll.”

  Billy Dare—Big Bad Billy, as he’d been called when he’d been fighting—breezed into the room, his frame no longer as massive as it had once been, but still imposing for a man of his age.

  “I thought you might be in trouble when you drove in. The Galway’s a decent enough joint, but when a nice girl like you books a room, tries to euchre me about whether she’s got a man with her and parks her car ’round the back where it can’t be seen from the road, the bells go off. Holy liftin’!”

  He stopped stock-still a few feet from Malone, his normally good-natured expression appalled.

  “She won’t let me look in a mirror. Now I think I know why.” Malone tried to stand, but sank back on the bed. He held out his hand wryly. “Seamus Malone.”