Die for Me (13 page)

Chapter 12

The motel wasn’t safe. The stopping point for the night would have to be an abandoned market a half mile from the bar. The buildings hadn’t been used in years as far as Taigen could tell, but provided perfect shelter for a campfire. The night was calm, nothing out of the ordinary, no assassins and no sign of police.

“What if Isaac doesn’t show?” Torrhent shoved the last of their supplies into the duffle bag. “It could just be a trap.”

What had begun as an inventory of their supplies had turned into an argument.

“If he wants to find you as much as I think he does, he’ll already have men there.”

“Why?” Her eyes lit up with the possibility, her attention focused on him entirely.

“Because any smart man scouts the place before showing up.”

“Then why haven’t you scouted it?”

“We will.”

“I think we’ll be lucky if he shows up at all.” Torrhent sat next to him, crossing her legs beneath her. Pillows of dust floated into the air. “But you really think handing me over to him will get you what you want?”

Taigen made sure his next words were clear. “Revenge can make a person blind. It affects decision-making skills. Even the smallest slip-up can screw up the most carefully conceived plan. This plan will only work if you stick by it and can keep your head on straight.”

“You think because I’m
angry
I’ll slip up?” Her words were even, careful and calm. She’d been trying hard not to show her emotions and Taigen was impressed, but he’d slowly unraveled her control. “That man took away my life,” Torrhent said. “So yes, I’m angry.” She leaned closer to him, her elbows resting against her knees. “But like you said, this is about stopping a mons—your sister. I think I can rise above my
petty
wish for justice.”

He leaned back, supporting his weight with his upper body. “Tell me what kind of man he is. What are his bad habits, hobbies, anything we can use against him.”

“Nothing about him when I was growing up said ‘sociopath,’ if that’s what you mean. He was a good guy until two years ago.”

Two years ago. Charlie Rutler’s mugging gone wrong. “Your mother’s murder.”

A sharp inhale signaled her surprise. “How did you know that?”

“I did my research.”

Torrhent exhaled slowly, her hands shaking as she wrapped them around her stomach. “They told me it was a mugging,” she said quietly.

“You don’t believe that?”

“Her money was still there. The only thing missing was her wedding ring.” Her eyes stared into the dirt beneath them. “I found out later they’d cut off her finger. Isaac said I didn’t deserve to remember her like that.” She wiped a stray tear from her face and sniffed. “He changed after that.”

“How so?”

Shadows formed across her face from the campfire and Torrhent looked away, as if one of those shadows would suddenly reveal a hidden figure looking to get the drop on them. “Small things at first. He’d sit in his study, stare at her picture for a couple hours every day. Then he wouldn’t come home. He ordered me not to leave the house, and if I did, I had to take Nicholas with me.” She leaned back, copying his position. “It was like he thought I was going to get mugged, too.”

Taigen studied her forced smile. “He must have really loved her.”

She nodded, biting her bottom lip. “In a big way.”

“We can use that.”

Torrhent sat up, resting her elbows on her now-crossed legs. “You want to use my mom’s death against him?”

He wouldn’t lie to her. Not after they’d finally agreed to work together. “Yes.”

“How?”

Taigen thought about it for a moment, coming up empty. “I’m not sure yet, but there has to be a way.”

“We’re already using me as bait to get him here.” Doubt tainted her voice. “How about we cross that bridge when we get to it?”

“Whatever you say.”

Her fingers pulled at the ends of her hair.

“Your hair was longer on TV. And red. I liked it better.”

“Me, too.” Torrhent chuckled. “Guess he took away more than I thought.”

“You want to kill him?”

She didn’t answer for the space of two breaths, but dropped her hand and held her chin high. “I want him dead. I’m not stupid enough to believe Isaac Rutler let my mom go into the city alone. He’d have sent Nicholas with her at the least. I think he got into something bad and someone didn’t like the way he did things, so they killed her. It’s his fault she’s dead. I know it.”

The campfire cracked and popped, filling the awkward silence.

“What are you going to do after this?” he asked.

Her stare sent a shiver down his spine. “I haven’t really thought about it. If I don’t wind up dead, I’m probably going back to prison.”

The hard truth.

No matter what happened, she’d still be punished for a crime she hadn’t committed and thrown behind bars for escaping. Sure, she’d accidently killed a guard, but not the man she’d been sent to prison for. Isaac Rutler had gone to extreme lengths to pin it on her.

“You never thought about just running away?”

She looked as if she might laugh. “I was on my way to get fake papers and then disappear when I met you. Suffice it to say I haven’t given it much thought since then.”

“Right.” He nodded.

She leaned her head to the side, studying him. “Aaron was supposed to be making me a new identity. If I hadn’t gotten it from him, I’d have paid someone else.”

“Imagine how that would have worked out if he hadn’t blown his cover.” He vaguely wondered what her new name might have been, where she would have lived.

He stood, brushing the dust and weeds from his jeans. “So what was your plan when you broke out of prison? You’d get your revenge, then you and Aaron would run away together? Live happily ever after?”

Taigen tried to ignore the spike in his heart rate at imagining her with another man. He stared out over the barren landscape to take his mind off the memories of last night. The past couple weeks had been the first time in two years he’d felt useful. Protecting Torrhent wasn’t just a job. It was a duty. Just like stopping his sister. He faced her.

She stared at him for a moment, a smile pulling at her lips. “To be honest, last week was the first time I’d met him in person. He promised he could get me papers without problems.” Torrhent laughed, her eyes crinkling at the edges. “I guess he’s not very good at keeping promises.” She twirled a strand of hair around her finger innocently enough, but Taigen knew it as her tell.

“How’d you hear about him?”

“You think that’s important right now?”

“A man then. Someone you cared about?” It was just an assumption, but from the expression on Torrhent’s face he’d hit a sore spot. For a moment, a pang of jealousy ripped a hole in his chest. He shouldn’t give a shit about the men she’d been with, but there it was, slowly making its way from his chest into his stomach. “Were you close?”

She nodded. “We were, then I went to prison for a murder I caught my stepdad committing.”

“He abandoned you.”

“It wasn’t just him. Everyone I knew turned their backs on me. My friends all thought I really had it in me to do that to a person.” Her eyes were distant. “But it was for the best. I learned I can’t depend on anybody but myself. So you see?” She smiled, electrifying the pain in Taigen’s chest. “There’s an upside to this whole thing.”

He wished he had her optimism, but the truth was, she couldn’t fight this battle on her own. “You were in for what? A year?”

“More or less.” Torrhent reached for the tips of her hair again. “Took them four months to convict me.”

Taigen nodded. He’d only spent a couple nights in county, never a maximum-security prison. “What was it like?”

She supported her weight on her hands as she leaned back and looked up into the stars. “I can’t say it was horrible. There’s always a few women who bully the others, but they never really bothered me.” She met his gaze, a smile spreading across her face. “Being convicted of murder saved my life on the inside. Nobody wanted to come near me.”

She straightened, brushing the dust from her hands. “But it also meant nobody would talk to me either.”

“Except the guard.”

It was her turn to nod, but Torrhent didn’t answer for the space of a few heartbeats. “You know, I didn’t even know who the dead guy was.”

She laughed, her shoulders shaking with her outburst. “Just came home one night, went to tell Isaac I was there, and found a body on the floor. Next thing I knew, I was in cuffs and the FBI had me in an interrogation room.”

Taigen imagined exactly how it went down. Authorities demanding answers. Torrhent unable to give them. “They had to have evidence.”

She smiled again, but he got the feeling it was forced. “They had iron-clad proof.”

“What was it?”

“My fingerprints were on the knife that slit his throat.”

“Could have been taken from anywhere,” he said, envisioning how many different ways Rutler or his damned bodyguard could have framed Torrhent for murder. Coffee mug. Fingerprints taken recently for any kind of legal proceeding or document. Slipping the knife into her hand as she slept. Risky, but not impossible.

“Well”—she leaned back again—“throw in a letter my ex wrote to break up with me, have Isaac or whoever change the name of who sent it and you’ve got yourself some evidence. They called it a crime of passion.”

Her face wasn’t visible as she rested her head on her folded arms, but Taigen imagined a dream-like expression on it. “What about you? Are you going to go back to a day job when this is all over? Do you guys even have day jobs?”

“No.” He threw a twig into the fire. “I don’t know what I’ll do.”

“You don’t have somewhere you want to go or see?”

There was one place, but Taigen had difficulty imagining himself there. “England.”

“What’s in England?”

“My accent for one. Can’t believe how much of it I’ve lost.” With the emotion, his voice deepened, the ends of his sentences rising more like a question when he spoke. He’d barely pronounced his
t
s and suddenly he was overcome with the desire to return to his heritage. He didn’t go on. In reality there was nothing for him in the land of his ancestors.
Where else do you have to go?

He caught a smile from her and memorized every element of it. Torrhent was beautiful when she smiled. Carefree. That look would soon be replaced with horror, but he’d do everything he could to prevent her from being harmed. He’d promised to protect her, but a woman who could protect herself in even the smallest ways would ease the tension that had been building since he met her. “Get up.”

“What?”

“Just get up.”

She did, brushing the dust from her clothing.

“All right.” He wrapped his fingers around her biceps and pushed her to the right. “Stand here. Put your right leg back like this.” His hand skimmed down the front of her thigh and directed her into position. She was warm, fragile. “Okay, put your hands up like this. Put your right arm out a little farther than the left.”

Torrhent copied him, both arms in front of her, shaping into a V. “Are you teaching me to box?”

“I’m going to teach you how to throw a punch.” Taigen got into his own position, facing off with her. The light from the campfire lit her strong features, taking his mind off the fact that in less than twenty-four hours he’d have to expose her to the bad guys and hope for the best. “Okay, you want to make your body as small of a target as possible. Turn your hips this way.”

He reached for her, but she beat him to it. “Good. You’re going to rotate your right hip forward with everything you’ve got. That’s going to give you the momentum to knock me on my ass.”

“You really think I can keep trained killers at bay with this?”

Taigen ignored her. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Closing his eyes, he imagined her exact position. “Punch me.”

“You know, I’ve been waiting a long time to hear you say that.”

He heard her move and dodged to his right.

She tried again, but this time he went to the left.

“Your predictability is going to get you killed.” Taigen opened his eyes, finding her in the starting position just as he’d showed her.

“How did you—You couldn’t even see me!”

“Sight isn’t your only sense. Again, but try to be quiet about it.”

“I can do that.”

He closed his eyes. And waited.

Five seconds passed. Ten. Twenty. What was she waiting for?

Taigen opened his eyes and smiled.

Torrhent wasn’t there.

Logically, there was only one place to hide, and he turned just in time to avoid being struck from behind. Dodging to the right, he chuckled as her momentum carried her past him and face-first onto the ground.

“See? You’re catching on already.”

“Twenty years of ballet kept me on my toes.” It was just a slight remark, but one she hadn’t let slip before.

“You’re a dancer?” The idea intrigued him.

“Once.” Torrhent brushed dirt from her clothes again.

“Your turn.”

“Are you going to punch me in the face?” Her voice sounded wary and he couldn’t blame her.

“Not if you move fast enough.” He smiled and shot her a wink, trying to ease her worries. “You can do this. Close your eyes.”

Torrhent closed her eyes, her face peaceful for just a moment. “I guess I’m not trying to impress anyone at this point in my life. A black eye won’t be so bad.”

“Stop talking and just listen. What do you hear?” Taigen stepped to his right, circling her slowly and as quietly as he could.

“The campfire.”

“Good. What else?” He watched her chest rise and fall evenly and moved again. He wasn’t more than an inch away from her, inhaling her citrusy scent. The kiss he planted on the back of her neck was gentle but started a frenzy he wasn’t ready for. Watching the shadows the campfire cast on her face made him realize he’d never been so turned on in his life. He couldn’t stop imagining the feel of those toned arms and legs wrapped around his torso.

She remained frozen as he started moving again.