Nauti Nights (40 page)

“Now I can tell you I’m going to kick your ass personally when this is over, Cranston,” Natches spoke

through the ear receiver. “Didn’t I warn you about pulling surprises on us, man?”

Cranston grunted. “Keep your finger off that trigger, Natches, and your eyes on Grace. Let’s at least get a little evidence against these bastards before we start shooting. If you don’t mind, that is?”

“And if I mind?”

TWENTY-THREE

Natches kept his sniper rifle trained on Johnny and his finger on the trigger. That finger twitched. He

wanted to kill the bastard so damned bad it was all he could do to hold back. It ate at his gut with a power that nearly gave him indigestion.

Johnny Grace. He was a first cousin. He had been raised with them when he was younger, until he,

Rowdy, and Dawg figured out that Johnny was more like Natches’s father than the gentle, smiling father

Johnny’d had.

Ralph Grace, before his death, had managed to keep his wife and his son in check. After his death, though, Nadine and Johnny had revealed the vicious, evil streak they possessed.

He caressed the trigger of his rifle as he trained his sights on Johnny’s forehead. Fucking bastard. God, how he hated Johnny. It was a hatred that nearly rivaled the hatred he had for his own father, Dayle

Mackay.

As he stared through the rifle sights, he didn’t see the image Johnny was trying to impersonate, that of Dawg’s lover, Crista Jansen. No, he saw Johnny. Just Johnny. His beady little eyes narrowed as he leaned against Alex’s car, his arms crossed over his fake breasts as he watched the dirt road he expected Bedsford to use.

Natches knew he should have expected this. He should have known Cranston was hiding shit; it was what

Cranston did best. And to be honest, he had suspected it; he just hadn’t put two and two together fast

enough.

Because he had been too damned busy holding back a more personal fury.

It was bad enough that Rowdy had to be so damned possessive over Kelly, but now Dawg had to go and

do the same thing with Crista. That lack of connection was affecting him. He was beginning to feel

disassociated, cold. That tight knot of bitter ice inside his soul that he had fought all his life was hardening now.

Rowdy and Dawg had grown up, and they had grown away, though he was certain they didn’t see it that

way. Since Rowdy had taken Kelly, Natches had tried to share time with Dawg and Rowdy rather than

women. But hell, women took up time, and Kelly was as spoiled as any female ever had been by Rowdy.

Sometimes, Natches thought they lived in each other’s pockets, and now Dawg and Crista were taking the

same route. And Natches was left standing on the outside, watching, wondering, and regretting.

He had thought the sharing would continue. He had let himself care for Kelly, let her into his heart,

believing that when Rowdy came home that he would be a part of the intimacy, only to find out that

Rowdy had found a core of possessiveness somewhere.

And Dawg. Dawg was doing the same thing. No other man would touch Crista without finding himself

wishing he had held back. And Dawg was a mean bastard when he was riled.

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And this was why Natches hadn’t connected Bedsford and Johnny. Because he was too busy adjusting to

changes that he hadn’t expected, too busy trying to find a way to keep the ice around his soul melted.

He wasn’t succeeding. A testament to that fact had his finger aching to twitch just enough to put a bullet in the back of Johnny’s head.

Johnny had instigated every beating, every humiliation, every vicious attack Dayle Mackay had ever made

against Natches. He had carried rumors to his father, and in many cases, proof of Natches’s supposed

crimes.

Sharing his women. Drinking too young. The instances were too many to name and too dangerous to

remember right now.

His shoulder ached like hell as he stood amid the thick branches of the pine tree, his rifle resting on one thickly needled tree branch as he bent to keep Johnny in sight.

The bullet that had taken him out of the Marines hadn’t completely taken him out of the game. Once an

assassin, always an assassin. Once a man deliberately set his sights on another man and pulled the trigger, then it was a part of him forever. He might walk away from it, but he could never escape it.

Natches hadn’t wanted to walk away or to escape. He just hadn’t had any other choice.

“Natches, we’re moving into position.” Dawg’s voice came across the receiver in his ear. “Bedsford

should be driving into the cabin yard any second.”

Natches lifted his gaze from the gun sights and stared down the road.

“In sight.” The van was pulling up the dirt track, bouncing over the ruts as the driver obviously took her time.

Crista was driving. Natches’s gut clenched at the fear she must be feeling. She was depending on them to protect her, trusting Dawg and him to make certain nothing happened to her.

“Natches.” Dawg said his name, nothing more, but he understood the message in it. The plea that Natches

keep her safe, no matter the cost.

“I have her covered, Bro,” he said quietly. “No fears.”

“Natches, we need those two alive,” Cranston repeated. “We need them all alive. Don’t you pull any shit

on me.”

The corners of Natches’s lips kicked up in amusement. It was a good thing he liked Cranston.

“Do your job; I’ll do mine,” he said softly. “Crista is priority. Period.”

Cranston cursed, but Natches could have sworn he heard Dawg’s breath of relief.

He’d die for Dawg and Rowdy. Without them, he wouldn’t have survived past his teens. He was irked at

the direction their lives had taken; at times, he was damned pissed off over it. But he understood it.

Rowdy especially. Rowdy had never known the darkness that Natches and Dawg had lived through. And

even Dawg, who had known the pain but not the pure evil that Natches had experienced.

Kelly and Crista had healed Rowdy and Dawg. He couldn’t blame the two women for not seeing the

loneliness it had caused in Natches.

Loneliness doesn’t kill, though. It aches, it taunts, but it doesn’t kill. He could survive loneliness.

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“Van in sight.” Natches came to attention as the white panel van drove into the cabin’s yard.

He wrapped the strap of his rifle around one hand, held it steady against the branch, and caressed the

trigger with the other. He’d have to take Bedsford out first, then Johnny, if it came to killing.

He would protect Crista. Rowdy and Dawg had protected him, saved him. He could do no less for them

now.

Crista pulled the van to a stop beside Alex’s car and stared at the vintage ’67 navy blue Camaro. She

stared at the car and would have winced at the fury Alex was going to experience if he ever learned his

baby made it out of the garage he kept it locked in.

He was going to explode all over Johnny Grace with a force that would strip the man’s flesh from his

bones and make him pray for forgiveness.

If Johnny managed to live past Dawg, that was.

“You know, Johnny just signed both your death warrants with that car, right?” she asked as Bedsford

straightened behind her. “Alex will hunt you to bell and back.”

“He’ll have to find us first.” The side panel door opened, and he turned back to her with a wave of the

gun. “Come on, lady. Let’s get this over with so we can get the hell out of your fine little county.”

Crista moved stiffly from the driver’s seat, her gaze on the gun in his hand before moving past it and

stepping out into the dirt clearing to face Johnny.

She stared at him, her gaze going over the clothes he wore. One of her best dresses. The wig was a

near-perfect match to her hair, and with the makeup he had used, his features were almost similar.

And he was leaning against the Camaro, a wide smile on his face as she watched him silently.

“You did good, baby,” Johnny told Bedsford quietly as the other man moved to him.

Johnny lifted his face and gave Bedsford a quick kiss while keeping his eyes on Crista.

“Poor Crista.” Johnny sighed as Bedsford moved away from him. “You should have kept your distance

from Dawg. I could have helped you out a bit here if you had. Besides, torturing my cousin was one of the points of this game that I enjoyed the most.”

“How sad,” Crista whispered, meaning it. “You’ve spent your life coveting everything Dawg is and has

rather than building your own life. Why?”

His eyes narrowed on her. “Because it should have been mine. Haven’t you figured it out yet, Crista? I

actually thought Dawg would have figured it out, but he was never smart enough to put two and two

together.”

She stared back at him, old gossip whipping through her mind as she traced his features, his build. He

looked like his mother, nothing like his father, so it was impossible to tell.

He chuckled, a low, frightening sound. “You remember, don’t you? After Ralph Grace died, the rumors

began slithering through the county like snakes that refused to die. Mother was pregnant when she married Ralph. Unfortunately, Ralph wasn’t the father, no matter how much he thought he was.”

It was sickening.

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Crista glanced away from him, her eyes closing momentarily at the thought of those old tales.

“Yes, Chandler Mackay was my father.” He sounded girlishly pleased at relating that information. “I was

actually born first, by a few days. Brenda Mackay, Dawg’s mother, knew, of course, and used it to force

our father to sign it all over to Dawg in his will. The stupid bitch, she should have taken her little bastard and left then rather than hang around and steal everything that should have been mine.”

Crista felt her knees weaken at the fury in Johnny’s voice.

Incest. Chandler Mackay, it had been rumored, had been sleeping with his sister for years before she

married Ralph Grace, and then again, after the other man’s death. There were those who swore that

Chandler Mackay had had a hand in Grace’s death himself.

She turned and looked at Bedsford then, watching as his gaze roamed around the area, eyes narrowed, as

though searching for something.

“Your boyfriend here thinks you’re going to run to Nicaragua with him, Johnny,” she said, more to

distract Bedsford than anything else. “I told him you would never leave Somerset or Dawg. What would

be the point of all this if you couldn’t torture him with it?”

A self-satisfied smile shaped Johnny’s lips as Bedsford turned to him.

“Our plans may change now that I have you here.” He shrugged his shoulders as though it didn’t matter.

“Why leave Somerset when, like you say, I can stay here and torture all parties involved?”

“So you definitely intend to kill me.” She prayed Dawg was close. Surely if he was here by now, he would have done something.

“I really don’t have a choice, sweetheart.” He sighed, shaking his head in mock compassion.

“That wasn’t the plan, Johnny.” Bedsford stared at him in shock. “We can’t stay around here now. There’s no way the Mackays won’t know we were involved.”

“They won’t know anything, Jim,” he promised, reaching out to touch the scowl on the other man’s face.

“Settle down, lover. Everything will work out perfectly. You’ll see.”

Crista saw it coming, and she was certain Jim should have, most likely did. The hand holding the gun

twitched as his scowl deepened, but Johnny’s other hand came up too fast. The gun he held exploded. The

bullet tore into Bedsford’s chest, straight through his heart, and left him staring back at Johnny in shock.

He fell to his knees, his hands reaching out to Johnny as Johnny stepped back; then Bedsford toppled over to the ground.

Crista stared in shock, her eyes locked with Jim Bedsford’s surprised, agonized gaze as it slowly dimmed and grew cold.

“That was unfortunate.” Johnny sighed.

Crista lifted her head, only then noticing that Johnny wore clear latex gloves over his hands.

“He loved you,” she said, knowing it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered to Johnny but destroying Dawg.

“Of course he loved me.” Johnny rolled his eyes at the declaration. “He adored me. I worked hard to make certain he did. But I no longer need him. This way, I don’t have to split the million dollars, and I don’t have to leave Somerset for fear of him growing a conscience over his cousin’s death. Jim was a bit of a

whiner. He didn’t like killing the boy.”

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“Dawg knows you’re involved in this, Johnny. If you kill me, he won’t need the law on his side. He’ll take you apart. You know he will.”

“A million dollars can buy a lot of protection. And Dawg and Natches aren’t the only ones who know how

to hide and fire a rifle, Crista,” he told her with amused unconcern.

Johnny couldn’t know the evidence the agents had on him; if he did, he wouldn’t be so certain. All she

had to do was be patient; Dawg would be there. Johnny wouldn’t expect that. As far as he knew, no one

would even consider suspecting him of impersonating her.

“And Alex? Do you think he won’t take up where Dawg might fail? This isn’t going to go over as easy as

you think it will, Johnny.”

He was silent for long moments. Moments that seemed to drag out, to stand still as the forest around them held its breath. Silence descended in the clearing as the smell of blood and death began to fill Crista’s head.