Jade Sky (20 page)

Rees froze. "Pardon?"

Matt told him everything he knew
—
about Dawkins, Lake Kivu, the hit squads sent after them the night before, even the bonk-guns.

"So we came here."

"Why?"

"Because they aren't going to stop trying to kill us, and anyone who knows me knows that I'd never leave my wife with you, not for one goddamned second. It wouldn't occur to Momma or her momma or Justin or anyone else to even consider it, if ICAP goes asking where we might have gone."

"I still talk to Justin sometimes
—
"

"Don't care. Just don't tell him she's here and don't invite him up. And if she needs to go to the hospital, she needs another name. Better, she needs another name for around town." He cut off Jason's question before he had a chance to ask it. "I hope no more than a few weeks, and we'll get out of your hair."

Jason sighed.
We have a halfway house
—

Matt slammed his hand down onto the desk, careful not to break it. "No halfway house. She needs to stay away from junkies." He ignored Rees's startled look, picked up the scotch, and set it between them. "And no booze." Bile rose in his throat as he admitted her weakness to the man who took advantage of it. "It's been a hard few years. For her. She got into some things she shouldn't have, alcohol, more than that, but she's been clean a while, and she needs to stay that way."
For her. For the baby.

"Where am I supposed
—
"

Matt cut him off with an upraised hand. "Make up a story, make up a name, and find her a place local, somewhere that takes dogs. Just leave back home, White Spruce, and anyone we know out of it. And don't you dare drink in front of her. She doesn't get a drop, not even at service."

I'm so sorry
—

Matt snarled. "Don't. You try to apologize, and I'm likely to get violent. We're here because you're good cover. We're here because you love her, and you're going to act out of that love and shelter her until her husband returns."

Jason said nothing for a long moment, then nodded. "Yeah. I will." Time stretched as the silence grew between them. "So, what now?"

"For me? It's better you don't know."

*   *   *

As Matt left the church, the whispers gibbered in murderous relief. He let their undirected, primeval hatred skitter across his mind, then gasped as they entwined with his own. He stumbled to one knee and stayed there, eyes closed, peeling away tendrils of inhuman monstrosity until only his remained. He shuddered, took a breath, and stood.

He approached the Oldsmobile on wobbly knees and found Monica dozing in the back. Ted stared at him from the driver's seat, tail a whirlwind of berserk, undirected love and loyalty. He took a deep breath, whole again, and grabbed the handle. She opened her eyes as he got in, and sat up when he closed the door.

"He wouldn't do it, would he?"

Matt didn't look at her. "He said yes. You'll be staying here a while, until I can figure out what's going on, get ICAP to back off."
Or something.

"What if they don't?"

Then I kill everyone I have to until you're safe.
"They will."

She reached forward to scratch Ted's nose and rolled her eyes. "Baby, you just killed twenty people they sent to murder us. And 'they' are a multinational organization that kills superhuman monsters all over the world with basically no jurisdictional boundaries. What could you possibly do to get them to back off?"

He closed his eyes and leaned his head against the window. "I'm not sure. But I think I need to talk to Jeff."

"Can you trust him?"

A vision swam in front of his closed eyes.
Monica, crying over a coffin draped with an American flag, Jeff behind her, face solemn for the cameras. As he turns toward the car, he raises a hand to cover a lopsided smirk.
Unsure where the vision fell between premonition and imagination, he shook it off and turned to look at her.

"I have no idea. He's never done me wrong that I know of, and he doesn't tell me everything, but he tells me he doesn't tell me everything . . . ." He picked up her hand and kissed it. "And I don't tell you everything, either. It's the nature of the beast."

"That don't answer the question, baby. Do you trust him?"

Matt ran his fingers over hers, conscious of Jason watching them from the doorway to the church. "Six months ago? Hell, yeah. Yesterday, maybe. But not today. The order might not have come from him, but there's a good enough chance it did. And even if it didn't, if he's given a choice between him and me, I don't think loyalty would tie him down too hard."

"What about your team?"

He shrugged.

"What does that mean?"

He shrugged again. "I don't know, babe. I know Akash has my back, but I'd have bet on Conor, too, right up until I had to kill him. Sakura's all business, but she's insightful and doesn't trust Jeff or Brian, and Garrett . . . . We work well together, but I don't think he likes me much."

"What if you told them the truth? Showed them the injector-guns?"

"Yeah. Maybe." He nodded, more for her benefit than his. "I think so."

"Then trust your gut. Call them."

Jeff Hannes walked into the dry cleaner's and didn't seem to notice when the "Open" sign went dark. He held out his ticket and a twenty-dollar bill, the same transaction he made every Tuesday on his way home from work, and drummed his fingers on the counter as the small Laotian man stepped into the back room. Matt stepped out from behind a suit rack and snatched Jeff's Glock 9mm from the concealed-carry holster under his left armpit.

Jeff whirled in surprise, and Matt put the barrel under his chin.

"Do I need this, Jeff?"

His eyes widened, and he licked his lips. Then he smiled his smarmy, car-salesman's smile and spoke in a low almost-whisper. "Hey, buddy, we all thought you were dead! What the hell happened?" The smile didn't touch his eyes. Not for the first time, Matt wondered if "buddy" meant "I'm lying" in Jeff-speak.

"I asked you a question."

Jeff shook his head. "No, man, you don't need that. We're totally cool, you know, if you are."

Matt brushed the safety back on with his thumb and stuffed the gun in the back of his pants. "I'll hold onto it for the moment, if you don't mind." He plucked Jeff's cell phone from the breast pocket of his blue dress shirt, turned it off, and put it in his front pocket. "That, too."

Mr. Ketthavong carried in a pile of gray suits, all smiles. Jeff took them, gave a quick smile, and Matt followed him out the door with a polite wave.

Smile still plastered to his face, Jeff walked to his car, a dull silver BMW four-door from a decade past. He blipped the alarm, opened the back door, and hung the suits from the handles above the doors. He raised his eyebrows at Matt, and Matt nodded to the driver's seat.

They got in, and Matt set Jeff's pistol on the floor. Jeff started the car, checked his mirrors, and pulled out.
Where am I going?

"Take the expressway south," Matt said, cutting off the unspoken words. "We need to talk." He made a show of unplugging Jeff's GPS and left the cord dangling.

"What the hell happened?" Jeff put on his blinker, cut over two lanes, and merged with the traffic headed south.

"That's what I was hoping you could tell me."

Jeff licked his lips. "When you didn't show Monday, we sent some folks to your house. The place looked clean, like nobody's home, but it was too clean, you know?" He glanced at Matt, and when he didn't respond, Jeff continued. "So we send in a forensics team—just covering our bases—and they find blood traces everywhere. I mean, everywhere. Kitchen, bedroom, hallway, outside. They fly me out there, and your furniture's different. New couch, new chair, new rug. It didn't look at all like that time I visited. We found a piece of shrapnel embedded in your fireplace, and it tested positive for gunpowder. With that helicopter accident in the woods behind your house, we knew something just didn't add up."

Jeff passed a tractor trailer and skipped the next exit. When he didn't continue, Matt prompted, "And?"

He threw up his hands, then grabbed the wheel. "And what? We put out an APB for you and Monica—on the down-low—and started checking with our sources. We thought maybe Dawkins's men got to you, some kind of retaliation. We've been shitting ourselves for two days."

Unconvinced, Matt waited.
So what do you say we turn the car around and
—

"We're not turning the car around, not yet."

Jeff's teeth clacked shut.

"Take the next exit."

"Where are we going?"

"Just drive." He put his hand on Jeff's shoulder to stave off the pending objection. "No, of course I don't trust you. I'd like to, but after what happened—"

"If you told me what happened—"

"I may come to trust you, but that's going to take some investigation." Matt squeezed Jeff's shoulder with just enough force to be uncomfortable, then brought his hand down to his lap. "In the meantime, just to be safe, I'm going to assume you had something to do with this. So if you screw with me I'm going to snap your neck and leave your twitching body on the side of the road. If everything pans out, we can be friends again."

Jeff sighed. "Fair enough, buddy." He took the next exit, and Matt directed him down a maze of back roads.

Matt timed it so that they pulled in to Walker's farm as full dusk settled in. Matt hoped that the circuitous route they'd taken had Jeff turned around and lost, and that the overcast darkness kept him from recognizing the place, if he knew it at all. Matt shut his door harder than he had to, and Buster's high-pitched, ululating bark answered from inside. A spotlight hit them in the face a moment later, and the screen door creaked.

Matt stared past it, his eyes compensating for the glare in ways that Jeff's couldn't. Aaron Walker's grizzled face squinted out into the darkness. He held the giant flashlight in his left hand, and a shotgun pointed at the floor in his right.

"Rowley? That you?"

"Hey, Aaron," Matt said.

"Where's my truck, you asshole?"

Jeff froze in place as his whole body tensed.

"In a minute." Matt jerked his head at Jeff. "You know this fella?"

Aaron blinded Jeff with the spotlight. "Sure do. He come round not an hour after you stole my truck, askin'—"

The whispers slithered through his skull, and Matt struck, blocking Jeff's wrist before the tiny, concealed pistol got anywhere near Matt's temple. He squeezed until the bones ground together.

Jeff cried out, and the weapon fell from his limp fingers. He dropped to his knees and grabbed for it with his left hand, and his fingers crunched as Matt stomped on them. He gasped in pain and pulled both arms to his chest, curling his legs up into a fetal position.

With an exasperated sigh, Matt plucked the pistol from the ground. "Don't be stupid, Jeff."

A shotgun cocked, and Matt looked up past the barrel and into Aaron's eyes.

"Just what in high heaven is going on here, Rowley?"

"Well, Jeff here just tried to shoot me. I'd appreciate if y'all didn't go and make the same mistake." He flipped the snub-nosed revolver over so that he held it by the barrel, and offered it grip-first to Aaron. "Hold that for me, would you?"

Walker set the spotlight on the ground, stepped forward, snatched the gun out of Matt's hand, then tipped the shotgun over his shoulder. Much of the tension drained out of him as he spat on the ground, toward but not quite at Jeff. "What's his story?"

Matt looked down at the man still writhing in pain on the ground. "Aaron Walker, meet Jeff Hannes. My boss."

Walker spat again. "I reckon you're fired."

"Reckon so. Can you get me some ice for his injuries?"

"He'll keep," Walker said. "First, what about my truck?"

Matt shook his head. "I can't tell you where I left it, not in front of him." They locked eyes. "It ain't just me they came for."

Aaron spat again. "My wallet was in the glove box. A hundred in cash inside."

"Eighty-seven." He reached down and pulled out Jeff's wallet, opened it, and pulled the bills out. "Here's two hundred and sixty. I'm good for the rest of the value assuming I live through this. Either way, take the insurance and run."

"For insurance, I got to report it stolen, which I ain't done yet on account of who stole it. Then they'll look for it, and maybe find it. I still got the sedan, and won't need to do any real hauling until December. Reckon if I hold off on reporting a couple days they'll still believe me?"

Matt smiled. "I'd appreciate that." He looked down at Jeff, still fetal, and the smile vanished. Any plans of letting him go went out the window—ICAP didn't know about Aaron's truck, but now Jeff did. Matt wasn't about to lead them even an inch closer to Monica. "You got any rope?"

"Just real big stuff. How about bailing twine?"

Matt shook his head. "Not strong enough. Got any bailing wire?"

Aaron made a brief nod toward the barn. "Reckon I do."

*   *   *

Jeff jerked his head away from the smelling salt, coughing. Matt pulled it aside and stepped back from the folding chair he'd snagged out of the backwoods motel hallway. Matt had stripped Jeff to his boxers and secured his ankles to the chair legs and his arms behind his back. He'd twisted the bailing wire enough to keep Jeff from wiggling a limb free, but not so much that it would cut off his circulation. Still, it couldn't have been comfortable against the deep bruise on his wrist.