Hard Irish (26 page)

Jared couldn’t bring himself to leave Rocky, but he did need some air.  A monstrous emotional vise had him by the throat.  He went back downstairs and outside to the parking lot next to the bullet-proof car they’d arrived in.  He didn’t care if Rocky or Jesse liked it or not.  He wasn’t going anywhere until they caught the killer after her.

The hot southern sun beat down on him.  Sweat trickled along his spine and he shivered as he replayed last night’s bombing of her house.

Screeching brakes wiped the memory of the flames from the back of his lids.  He snapped his eyes open in time to see the edges of a black sack close over his head and throat.  Resisting the urge to grab at the sack, he went for the Glock, but something slammed against the side of his head and his legs buckled.  He struggled to stay upright, trying to keep the bag from choking him as he grappled for a foothold.  Instead of gaining any edge in the fight, he fell back off the curb and lost the expensive, Italian loafer he was wearing, just before the world went completely black.   

C
HAPTER
S
IXTEEN

Rocky was just finishing the last of the papers at the hospital’s admission office when Jesse stepped away to answer his phone.  Mulligan stood reassuring and silent at her other side.  She kept her ear tuned to Jesse’s conversation, hoping that it was Jared calling.  Whether she wanted to or not, she kept wondering where in the hell he was.  She wasn’t through giving him a piece of her mind.

“Calm down, bro and say that over again.  What do you mean something is wrong with Jared?” Jesse moved a step closer to the wall as he switched the phone to his other ear.

Mulligan snapped to ramrod attention and Rocky paused, her fingers tightening painfully on the pen in her hand as her heart began to race.  Something was wrong with Jared?  She strained to hear as Jesse lowered his voice.

“Christ, James.  Don’t scare me like that.  This premonition crap has me worried that you’re on your way to the loony bin.”  Jesse signaled and Mulligan relaxed.  Rocky still felt as if she couldn’t breathe.

“No I’m not making fun of you or dissing your worry.  But you can’t let what you think is happening wig you out like this.  All of your angst over Jackson and me and nothing has happened, right?  So, you’re making a mountain out of a mole hill now, okay?

“Yeah, I get twins have a thing sometimes.  But I’m telling you to calm down.  I was with Jared not more than an hour ago.  Physically he’s fine, but otherwise he’s up a creek without a paddle by his own doing and he’s going to have to face the music for it.”

“He can’t answer his cell phone because...well, hell, because he doesn’t have it.  It was destroyed last night.  Maybe you’re just having a post-premonition here.  Last night, Jared had a close call, but all turned out alright.”

Jesse turned and looked back at her, and Rocky shifted her gaze back to the paper she hadn’t finished.  “No.  He isn’t at the moment.  That’s part of that creek thing I mentioned.  I told him to take a hike and let things cool down a bit.  Yes.  As soon as I talk to him, I’ll have him call.  Meanwhile you take a chill pill, bro.”

Jesse hung up the phone and Rocky blindly scribbled the last few answers then placed the clipboard on the admission desk.  Maybe she’d gotten up on the wrong side of the bed after all because she was now irritated with Jesse. 

And maybe wrong side of the bed was the wrong phrase to describe things because all sides of the bed this morning had felt damn good—but she didn’t want to think about
that
now.  She was too pissed off because who she thought she was with wasn’t who she’d been with, right?

Jared wasn’t Jared.  Jared was a liar.  Just like Collin had been...

Rocky stood and narrowed her gaze at Jesse as she crossed her arms.  “What right did you have to tell Jared to take a hike?”

Jesse’s eyes widened in surprise, something she didn’t think happened often.  “Because I didn’t think you wanted to see him.”

“I don’t think I do, but I am the one wronged here so it was my right to tell him to take a hike, not yours.”

Jesse opened his mouth then shut it, confusion knitting his brow.  Mulligan snorted.  “She has a point, Weldon.  Meanwhile, I have a text from McNall.  He just landed in Newark.  He’ll be at the Savannah/Hilton Head Airport in about two and half hours.”

“Good.  That gives us just enough time to set things up for tonight.”

“How? Without Jared how am I supposed to-”

Jesse held up his phone.  “You’ll call and I’ll answer.  The rest is up to you.”  He looked confident.  She wasn’t so sure.  They headed for the lobby.  Mulligan left to bring the car up to the entrance while Jesse stayed with her.  Rocky found herself scanning the crowd.  She should have been looking for whoever was out to kill her, but she wasn’t.  She was looking for Jared.

It seemed as if only seconds passed before Mulligan jerked the car to a halt and she and Jesse hurried out and got into the back seat.  Jesse shut the door and Mulligan pressed the gas.

Jesse leaned forward.  “Something wrong?”

Mulligan held up a leather loafer.  An expensive leather loafer that Jared had put on this morning.  “On the ground by the car.  You might want to call James back.”

“Shit.  Later.  Call Ringo and have him activate the tracer.”

Mulligan made the call then hung up.  “Ringo’s searching with the satellite now.”

Rocky grabbed Jared’s shoe, her stomach sinking even as fear lodged a knot in her throat.  “What’s going on?  What tracer?”

“My guess is whoever is after you took Jared for leverage.  As for the tracer?  All of the clothes in the safe penthouse have a tiny tracer placed in them.  Added precaution to help us keep track of our clients, especially when, like now, something goes very wrong.  Damn, Mulligan, I fucked up bad.  From now on you’re in charge of this case.  I’m thinking like a brother not a bodyguard.  If anything happens to Jared, I’ll—Dear God...”

“Jared was armed.  There wasn’t a glaring reason he couldn’t be left alone,” Mulligan said.

“There was every reason,” Jesse said.  “Sure he was armed and can shoot the ass off a gnat, but he’s not trained for this and I sent him off in mental duress.”

Rocky gulped for air.  Her whole body was shivering.  Jesse wasn’t at fault.  She was.  She found out in a flash that the pain she felt over Jared’s lying was nothing compared to the agonizing fear stabbing her now.

Jesse’s phone went off.  He answered and his expression twisted in anger.  “We have our ransom demand.  Ringo tried to trace the call, but it was too short,” Jesse said as he hung up.

“What?  They want me, right?”  Rocky was practically ready to give them herself on a silver platter.  Anything to save Jared from suffering or dying because of her.

“No.  They want the diamonds.”

“What diamonds?”  Rocky shook her head.  This didn’t make any sense.

“The million in diamonds that disappeared along with General Pearson and his wife in 1983.”

Jared struggled for consciousness.  Every muscle in his body shook and pain stabbed his brain with each pounding thud of his heart.  The acrid scents of mold and rotten wood burned his nostrils.  He managed to crack and eye opened and then wished he hadn’t.  He no longer had a bag over his head.  In fact, he no longer had any clothes on.  He was buck naked except for the gauze wrapped around his left leg.  He was gagged and his feet, hands and chest were tied to a cheap lawn chair that sagged and creaked.  A bad enough situation, but the noose snug on his neck and tied to a beam overhead, told Jared more than anything else that his odds of getting out of there alive were slim to none.

It wasn’t until he got it together enough to look around his surroundings that he shit a brick and panic grabbed his guts.  He was in an abandoned sawmill, very similar to the one near the family’s farm that he and James had had serial killer nightmares about when they were ten.  He wasn’t alone though.  Collin was there and his state sent a chill down Jared’s spine.

Eye-bulging desperation came close to describing the look on Collin’s face.  He too was gagged and tied to a chair, but from his soiled clothes and the stench, he’d been that way for some time.  A layer of thick padding appeared to be protecting Collin from getting any rope burns—thus preventing evidence of foul play.

The bottles of whiskey on the ground and a rubber funnel sitting atop one told another story.  Someone was forcibly keeping the man’s alcohol level high.

The set-up painted a very clear picture to Jared.  He was about to become the victim and Collin was being set up to be the perpetrator.  What he didn’t know was how all of this was related to Rocky’s mother’s past.

As much as he wanted to smash in Collin’s face, he sure as hell wouldn’t wish what his saw on his worst enemy.

Jared heard approaching footsteps behind him and braced himself.  The gag was shoved painfully down from his mouth.

“The bitch figure out where the diamonds are at yet?” the man whispered.

“What diamonds?” Jared asked, searching his mind.  Suddenly his ribs exploded with pain as the man swung what must have been a small wrecking ball.  Jared shuddered violently, his whole body breaking out in a sickening sweat of fear and horror.  The chair wobbled beneath the force of the blow and the noose tightened around his neck.

Dear God.  Dear God.  Dear God.  Jared could do nothing but pray.  He wasn’t even sure what he was praying.  For help.  For a quick death.  For Rocky that she be kept from ever knowing this inhuman evil dogging her.

Rocky had her hands clenched so hard her short nails cut into her palms, leaving them bloody.  Mulligan was at the wheel.  Jesse had moved to the front seat and had his laptop open.  From the R&D lab, Ringo had picked up the tracer signal from Jared and had directed them from Savannah toward the rural and muddy swamp lands riddling South Carolina’s coast.  They were now close enough to pick up the signal on Jesse’s computer.

Only Jesse spoke, giving Mulligan directions as the man raced fearlessly down the dirt road.  The car bounced over ruts and lumps so hard she was sure it would fall apart at any minute.  It had been an hour since they discovered Jared had been taken.

She was still in shock to learn that a million in diamonds was at the root of the death and destruction ruining her life at the moment.  Her mother hadn’t had money and neither had her father.  They’d always struggled and even more so when her mother had been stricken with cancer.  There were several times over the years that McKenna Construction had been on the verge of bankruptcy.  This was completely insane and heart-sickening. 

For someone to come after her for something related to the kidnapping and disappearance of General Pearson and his wife meant that Rocky’s mother had been involved in that horror.  Her gentle, loving mother had been a criminal, a fugitive, an illegal, a....murderer.

“We’re close,” Jesse said, looking up from the grid on his computer monitor.  “Within half a mile.  Park the car here and we’ll move in on foot.  It’s going to be at least half an hour before the backup team arrives.”

Rocky scanned the area.  They were completely isolated on a dirt road in the middle of the woods with deep canals lining each side of the road.  The scent of mud mixed with the brackish smell of stagnant water.  Clumps of low lying trees and brush occasionally edged the water.  Beyond that, the cypress groves with ghastly moss hanging like long dead skeletons stood sentinel, warning everyone to keep out.  It was clear someone had attempted to make a swamp inhabitable and had failed.

Rocky opened the car door and something big splashed somewhere in the green-black water of the canal.  It had to be a gator.  She shivered and hurried over to where Jesse and Mulligan were on the dirt road.  She did not like alligators at all.  Some folks ate gator meat in the south.  She didn’t.  Maybe it was the whole karma thing about doing unto others.  She was willing to eat a steak or a chicken and face either of those creatures in a dark alley, but a gator was a whole different animal.

By the time she made it around the car, Jesse and Mulligan were both looking at her as if she was a child who’d left her play pen and needed to be put back.  Had they expected she would sit in the car?  Were they planning on leaving her while they rescued Jared? No way.  “If you two think that I’m going to bloody sit here alone like a duck waiting to be slaughtered you’ve lost your mind.  I’m coming with you.”

“She’s right,” Mulligan said.  “Even if we leave her armed she’d be easy picking.  And if we lock her in the trunk who’s to say someone won’t push the car into the canal?”

“LOCK ME IN THE TRUNK?”

“He’s kidding,” Jesse said.

Rocky glared at Mulligan, but couldn’t read a damn thing from his expression.  “Not funny,” she muttered.

He grinned finally.  “We were trying to decide if we should let you follow slowly in the car while we move in on foot.  That way we’ll have our getaway vehicle closer but can still make a fast, but cautious approach.”

“Let’s stop wasting time and just do it,” Rocky said.  “Give me a phone and a gun.”

They both looked as if she’d lost her mind.  “I can shoot.  Maybe not a gnat’s ass but close.”

Jesse shrugged and handed her a pistol he had strapped to his leg.

Rocky took the short barreled 9 mm, pointed it at the ground and checked the chamber.  “How many rounds?”

“Fifteen,” Jesse said.

“Like the lady said, let’s move.”  Mulligan turned and headed down the road.

Jesse handed her his cell phone.  “I’ll call you when to follow.   Any calls for me, tell them to call Mulligan.”

“Got it.”

Rather than walk around to the canal side of the car, Rocky got into the passenger’s door and scooted over to the driver’s side then locked the car doors.  As she watched Jesse and Mulligan move down the road, she broke out in a cold sweat.  She suddenly realized that if someone did come riding down this road and she was forced to race away from them, she could very well end up in a canal...with the gators.