Behind the Lies (A Montgomery Justice Novel) (9 page)

Jenna shifted. The truck shuddered. Zach had to pull back.

He let out a long, slow breath. He’d have one chance at this.

He had to gain leverage. Throwing any hesitation off the ragged mountainside, Zach stepped on the running board. The truck
tilted his way. He reached in and grabbed one of Jenna’s hands. He dragged her toward him and clasped her under her arms. In a single motion he pulled her across the seat and out of the vehicle.

Just as her weight came free, the piñon trees holding the truck gave way.

The vehicle sped down the incline then disappeared over the cliff. Metal crunched and squealed. Finally a huge crash echoed from below. Zach lay back on a bed of pine needles, Jenna draped over the lower half of his body. He stared at the blue sky above.

Too close.

Jenna’s soft curves pressed against him. He liked the feel of her in his arms, but he shouldn’t. She was a whole different kind of trouble that he couldn’t deal with right now. Even if he offered to help her, she’d only run from him. Again.

He sat up and shifted her into his arms before he stood, trekking up the twenty feet to the road.

When his feet hit pavement Sam ran over, his small face streaked with tears, his eyes bright. “You saved her!”

He beamed up at Zach then stared at his mother. Sam reached up with a tentative hand and touched her bruised face. “She’s hurt.”

“I’m sorry I had to throw you, kid.”

Sam looked at his scraped hands and wiped them on his jeans. Zach winced. Tough little guy, though.

“We’ll get you fixed up.” Zach probed the deep cut just above Jenna Walters’s espresso-colored hair. “We’ll get you both fixed up. It looks worse than it is,” he lied. Head wounds could be trouble.

He settled her soft frame against his chest and carried her to the Range Rover. He placed her into the seat beside him. She hadn’t budged, hadn’t regained consciousness.

He turned to help Sam into the backseat.

He fought against a gasp. The boy stood, peering over the side of the mountain. Much too close to the edge.

No sound filtered through Brad Walters’s house. Eerie actually—and pleasant. His wife’s joyous laughter grated when she lavished all her attention on Sam. He should have found peace in the silence, but his well-ordered life had tumbled into chaos. All because of her.

Disbelieving, he stared for the third time at the stash of items dumped in the hallway.

He couldn’t believe Jenna had possessed the guts.

He’d taken her off the streets. She’d had nothing. No one. He’d made her into a lady, given her everything. And this was how she repaid him.

He walked through each room, once more searching for anything out of place. He’d identified all the listening devices. Luckily, he knew better than to discuss business in his home.

This house had been one piece of his well-orchestrated cover. His two worlds had never collided.

Or so he’d believed.

He should’ve killed Jenna already, but he had to know how she’d discovered his secret. Besides, he had to make arrangements for Sam. The kid couldn’t survive without someone watching over him.

He made his way to the back door. It had been her only way out. He picked up the flashlight from the patio table where he’d left it after his last foray and walked the yard again, this time
more deliberately. With Montgomery gone, he could take his time to do a proper study of her movements.

Sam had left the signed baseball tossed in the middle of the yard. He needed to take better care of his things. Jenna had always been too easy on the kid.

His son was coddled and spoiled. That would change. Once Brad eliminated Jenna, order would return. Then he’d make sure the boy learned self-control.

Brad’s father had taught the lessons well. Control must be maintained at all times. It was the only way to succeed. To win. To be someone.

The ball could rot. The boy would pay for a new one when Brad got his son back.

Brad ran the beam of light across the back wall, skimmed across the blood. They’d climbed into Zach Montgomery’s yard. He didn’t care what the actor said.

The man was a bum. No discipline. No control. Ever since Zach had moved in, he’d watched the guy come and go on a whim and then perpetually make the cover of the tabloids.

Anyone who let themselves show their weaknesses in public was a fool.

With a quick move, Brad vaulted to the top of the wall. He studied the drop. Far, but not too far for Jenna to help Sam down. At least his son showed some athletic prowess.

Brad scanned right, then left. It was the only way down. He could always predict his target’s movements, but Jenna had surprised him. He didn’t get it. His wife was a coward. She wasn’t a risk taker, which is why he’d chosen her. She had been exactly what he wanted.

The first time he’d seen her, Jenna was nothing but a street rat picking pockets. She’d been foolish enough to target him. He’d considered breaking her hand as punishment. One squeeze at the right point and she’d have been begging for mercy, but then he’d seen her eyes. He’d recognized the potential. He’d wanted her.

After one date, he’d known she was vulnerable, that he could mold her. He’d paid her uncle enough money not only to wash his hands of her but to make her life hell on the streets.

With nowhere to go, she’d been putty in his hands.

She’d been his perfect wife. A woman who would question nothing.

Until now.

Brad didn’t like the unexpected.

So, what had changed?

With a quick swing, he dropped into his self-indulgent neighbor’s yard.

The man was never here. A waste.

The space appeared different from this angle. What would Jenna see? What would she do? He put himself in tracking mode and studied the surroundings carefully. A house with a security system. Similar to theirs, but Jenna knew nothing of electronics or surveillance. She’d barely graduated high school.

She would have needed to check her or Sam’s injury from the wall. Brad’s gaze stopped at the pool. Towels, perhaps bandages.

He strode to the small building off the flagstone deck. The door had been locked.

This time when he tried the knob, it opened easily.

There, on the stone, a drop of blood pooled on the uneven surface. An empty water bottle and juice box had been tossed in the trash can.

Apple.

The same apple juice that Jenna kept in the refrigerator.

He slugged the wall; his fist broke through, leaving a hole inside the building. She’d been inches from him all the time.

His gaze lit on the cash lying on the table, and he stilled. He thumbed through the money. Over a thousand dollars. Thrown down as if it were nothing.

Not his Jenna. She grew up scraping by.

Zach Montgomery’s face filtered in his vision. The bastard had known.

He was an actor. He lied for a living.

No one else would have left the money here. The truth sliced through Brad. Had he underestimated his neighbor? Brad pulled his cell phone from his pocket. He pressed a key.

“Johansson.”

“Find out everything you can about Zach Montgomery.”

“The actor?”

“I want the data tonight.” Brad ended the call. He had other research to do. He had to figure out whom Jenna had contacted, and what she knew.

His identity had been compromised. He would plug the leaks and then begin again. He’d done it once.

His son…he hadn’t planned on that small wrinkle. But he could find another woman to raise his son. And do a proper job this time.

A simple plan. Once he found Jenna and the evidence his FBI mole had warned him about, she would have to die.

His phone rang. He glanced at the number. His eye flinched with the tick that only appeared when one person called.

The moment he’d agreed to the first job, he’d regretted it. Too many loose ends. He’d been right. Until today when Jenna had left him, this client had been the only person over whom he had no leverage.

“Walters.”

“I have another job for you. There’s been a development.”

“I’m booked.” He peered into Montgomery’s house. He would search the premises.

“A follow-up to the Colorado job from five years ago. Questions are being asked. I want them silenced. I want you in Denver tonight. Your target won’t be easy.”

“That’s what you said about the last one.”

“Well, this is a SWAT captain. John Garrison.”

“My price just went up fifty percent. Half now. Half on completion.”

“If you can do it within the week, I’ll double the payment.”

Brad flicked his thumb against his pinky. It was a risk, but the fat paycheck would help his transition to his new identity. He couldn’t allow questions to remain about the Colorado job. He had a reputation. Besides, Jenna’s betrayal had made him vulnerable.

“Done. Send the particulars to the same location.”

“No mistakes.”

Brad chuckled and brushed imaginary dirt from the perfectly pressed cuff of his shirt. “I don’t make mistakes or leave a trail that can be followed.”

“Don’t challenge me too boldly, Walters. You wouldn’t want me for an enemy. I would think the last eighteen months had taught you that.”

The call ended. Brad’s fingernails bit into his palm.

Too many loose threads. Not enough control. Unacceptable. He could hear his father’s voice berating him from the grave.
Fool, pathetic weakling, wimp.

He would trim all the loose ends. He’d use every set of skills to make sure no one would be left who could identify him.

No one except his son.

S
AM!

Her son’s name filtered into Jenna’s foggy mind. She blinked. Pain from the bump on her head dug into her like a knight’s sword.

Where was she? She cracked open her eyes. The sun burned into her through the car’s windshield. She couldn’t stand the light. The supple leather of the luxury seats cradled her body, yet the interior pressed on her heavy with heat. What had happened? Whose car was this?

The memory slammed into her. The truck. The cliff.

Sam.

Her pained gaze found his slight frame hovering far too close to the edge of the road.

“Don’t move, Sam.” Was that her shaking, weak voice?

Her heart stuttered. She had to get to her son. Jenna rolled to her side, but her entire body felt weighted down. She reached out her hand toward him. “Sam,” she called, her voice barely working.

Then she saw him. Zach Montgomery. Sam’s Dark Avenger raced across the road.

In one fluid motion, he scooped Sam up and away from the drop-off. Jenna’s throat closed off as Zach, his eyes closed and
his chin lifted to heaven, hugged her boy tight. The emotion painted on his face made Jenna swallow to avoid a sob escaping. His shoulders sagged and he carried Sam to the car.

Jenna fell back against the seat, boneless in relief.

“Don’t wander off without an adult,” Zach’s firm voice counseled Sam. “You could get lost. Or fall.”

“Like the truck.”

“Just like the truck.”

“It got smashed,” Sam said as he scrambled into the backseat. “I wanted to see.” The door closed.

Jenna shut her eyes. Her son was safe.

They were both safe.

For the moment.

Except now Zach knew about them.

If Brad ever found out…she’d discovered in his records exactly what he did to people who crossed him. Had she made Zach a target, too?

She tried to shake her head and groaned as the throbbing behind her eyes exploded.

“Mommy!”

Her son leaned into the front seat of the Range Rover. His small hand touched her face. She couldn’t move her head, but his cool touch reminded her why every sacrifice would be worth it.

The car door opened and a warm body leaned over her. “Jenna. Can you open your eyes? Look at me.”

She focused on lifting her lids. Such a small thing, but her body rebelled this time. She just couldn’t seem to compel her muscles to obey.

A large hand folded into hers. “Can you squeeze my fingers?”

She gripped him tight, holding on to the strong hand as if clinging to a lifeline. He’d saved her son. Saved them both.

“Good girl.”

His fingers tightened around hers, his strength frightening and calming at the same time. She didn’t want to let go.

Her son’s small sniffles filtered from behind her. “Why won’t she wake up, Dark Avenger? Make her wake up.”

“Don’t worry, Sam. I’m taking your mommy to the clinic. The doctors will get her all better.”

She gripped his arm, her fingernails digging into his skin. “No, please,” she whispered. “No doctors. He’ll find us.”

Zach leaned closer. The lingering scent of lavender and shampoo made something inside of him shift.

“Your husband?” he whispered.

She nodded, then winced. “Please.” She clutched his hand harder.

“You have a head injury. You may need a CAT scan.”

“No one can know,” she whispered. She opened her eyes. His icy-blue ones stared back at her. He studied her for a moment, his pointed gaze probing, searching for the truth. His thumb touched an area on her forehead. Even his gentle stroke made her wince as a shard of pain burrowed into her head.