Operation: Endgame (25 page)

“I want to impress you with my superior military might, but darling, you have to at least start making an effort.”

As he talked, Cassie tried to focus on the inflections of his voice which seemed somehow familiar, but with the way he had falsely deepened his voice, it was hard to tell. “For now, I simply want to pit my military skills against yours. Oh, and just in case you were wondering, I’m winning. Today’s Endgame already came for War. Goodbye, Cassie or should I say Cassandra?”

“Wait! Wha… damn, he hung up.” Cassie turned stricken eyes over to Jake.

“What did he say?” Jake growled menacingly as he tried to get his surging emotions under control. While Cassie had listened to the man on the phone, all the blood had drained out of her face and that was enough to cause Jake’s blood to run cold in fear for her.

“Oh my God, Jake, this is all just a game to him. He was going on and on about pitting his military prowess against mine. He sees this as a competition.” Cassie’s brow furrowed as she thought back over the conversation. “He ended with a weird phrase… Oh my God, Jake, start the truck back up. We have to go to War’s loft. I think he may be in danger.”

As Jake pulled out of the parking lot following Cassie’s directions to War’s loft, he asked her, “What exactly did he say about War and how do you know it was War, the person, not the event?”

“I don’t exactly. It was just the way he said it, ‘Today’s endgame already came for war.’ Doesn’t that sound like a threat against our War? And he called me Cassandra, just like War does.”

“I hope you’re wrong on this one, Cass.” But honestly, it did sound like a threat against War. Jake felt a prickling on the back of his neck and that was never an indication of something good about to happen.

Cassie chewed on her lip as she listened to her phone. “Damn, War’s not picking up.” She turned frightened eyes to Jake.

“Give Brian a call and let him know he should probably meet us at War’s loft and that your stalker has made contact again.”

As they pulled into the parking garage beside War’s loft, Cassie commented about another car parked in the guest parking. “That looks like Derek’s Explorer. Why would he be here?”

Jake looked over at the car in question, but his concern was for Cassie. Was she safer sitting alone in the car or walking into a questionable situation up in War’s loft? Jake decided they needed to stay together. He looked over at her as he pulled out his handgun.

Cassie’s eyes widened in surprise. “You think there’s going to be trouble, don’t you?”

“I honestly don’t know, but I don’t have a good feeling about this.” He looked at her very seriously. “I need you to do exactly what I say, Cassie. If I tell you to run, you run. If I tell you to duck, you duck. I need to know I can trust you to react to my commands.”

Cassie gave a short nod as she pulled her handgun out of her purse.

“Good girl.”

Cassie rolled her eyes at him and practically growled. “I only agreed with you because what you said makes sense, but I’m not a trained dog, so you better not start treating me like one.”

Jake gave a low chuckle. “Darling, make no mistake, I would never confuse you with a dog. Obedience is not in your personal dictionary.”

As they moved up the stairs, Jake heard her mumble behind him. “You got that right. Good girl, my ass.”

When they reached War’s door, Jake pushed Cassie behind him when he realized the door wasn’t closed tightly. He slowly pushed it open the rest of the way. Jake stealthily moved into the room, doing a quick assessing visual sweep. At first, it seemed there was nothing out of place, but then he saw where a lamp had been knocked off an end table and was shattered. At the same time he saw that, he heard a voice muttering from a room deeper into the loft.

“I’m so sorry, War. You can’t die. I’m sorry. God, please don’t die.”

Jake rushed to the room following the direction of the voice. When he walked into the room, Derek was standing in front of an unconscious War pressing into a bleeding wound in the center of his chest. War’s arms and legs were duct-taped to the arms and legs of the chair. From the looks of things, War had been shot while strapped to the chair. He heard Cassie gasp behind him, but he couldn’t do anything about that now. He needed to get Derek contained and away from War before anyone else got hurt.

“Derek, I need you to stand slowly, raise your hands in the air where I can see them, and move away from War.”

Derek looked up at Jake looking confused. “Wha…” Derek looked back down at his hands he had pressed into War’s bloody chest.

“Cassie, call 911. Derek, step away NOW!”

Derek was shaking his head, “I need to stop the bleeding. He’s going to die if we don’t stop the bleeding.” Derek was looking pleadingly at Jake and the gun.

Jake nodded. “Cassie will take over, but first I need you to raise your hands and step away.”

Derek looked like he was going to refuse, but he looked back at the gun again and then over at Cassie. “Okay, but hurry.” He addressed that last part to Cassie. “I don’t think he can lose much more blood.” Cassie nodded and when Derek saw her acquiescence, he raised his bloody hands high above his head and stepped far away from War.

Jake kept his gun trained on Derek as Cassie moved over to War. She shrugged out of her jacket as she went and immediately started using it as a compress on War’s chest. She raised her worried eyes to Jake. “That ambulance better hurry. He’s losing too much blood.”

Jake nodded, but kept his gun and focus on Derek, making sure he didn’t make any sudden movements.

Cassie continued to put pressure on War’s chest as she turned her attention to Derek. “I don’t understand. Why? Why would you do this?”

Derek continued to look stricken. “What? I didn’t do this. I just got here and found him like this.” He glanced frantically between both Jake and Cassie. “You have to believe me. I didn’t do this. I would never do something like this.”

Derek was getting worked up and that made him unpredictable, so Jake simply nodded at him. “The police will straighten it all out when they get here.” Thankfully, he could hear sirens coming so that would happen sooner rather than later.

Jake could see Cassie was trying to puzzle it all out, especially when she took it upon herself to start questioning Derek. “If you didn’t do this, then why were you here, Derek?” Jake tried to catch her eye to dissuade her from that line of questioning. They didn’t need Derek to become irrational, but Cassie wasn’t looking at Jake. She only switched her attention between Derek and War.

Derek was looking at War with the glazed look of someone going into shock. “I needed to talk to him. I felt bad after our fight Saturday night. I shouldn’t have brought Melissa to your party. It was my fault.”

“What was your fault, Derek? Why shouldn’t you have brought her? That doesn’t make any sense.” Cassie continued to question him.

Derek’s voice sounded broken. “You don’t understand. Is he going to die? God, he can’t die.”

At that moment, armed police and paramedics filed into the room. They quickly took custody of Derek and took him out of the loft in handcuffs and then worked on freeing War from the chair while trying to stabilize his condition. Brian arrived in the midst of the melee and quickly moved both Cassie and Jake to the side of the room so he could question them.

“What the hell happened today?” Cassie had given Brian a brief overview of her conversation with her stalker on the phone on their way over to War’s, so now they filled him in on what they had discovered once they arrived. Brian questioned, “Did you see Derek shoot him?”

They both shook their heads.

“Did you hear the gunshot on the way up to the loft?”

Again they both shook their heads. Brian rubbed his forehead. “Something just doesn’t make sense here. Why would he tie him up like that, shoot him, then stick around and work to save his life?”

Cassie exchanged a concerned look with Jake, but she interjected. “There’s something more you should probably know. Derek and War had a huge fight at the party at my house Saturday night. When we got here, Derek kept talking about how sorry he was and saying it was his fault.”

Brian looked at her shrewdly. “Do you know what the fight was about?”

“Not really.” Cassie shook her head. “They’ve always had a contentious relationship, but there was more to it that night. From everything I could tell, it had something to do with Derek bringing his new girl Melissa to the party. Honestly, it didn’t make any more sense at the time than it does now. I just don’t understand any of this. How could Derek be my stalker? I just don’t see it.”

Jake looked at her with sympathy. “Cassie, he’s your friend. You just don’t want to see it, but he’s had opportunity every time something’s happened. We know he was there late the night your office was vandalized. The note in the finals…he was handling those. The morning of the shooting, he’s the one that left so there was opportunity for an attack on you. We know there was some sort of issue between War and him, so this attack makes sense. Even the competition for military prowess is something that fits with him working in your same field.”

“Not really, he works the political side, not the military side. Besides, if he wanted this to be a game and a competition, why would he have hung around after shooting War? That just doesn’t fit. Everything else is too easy. I don’t buy it.”

Brian nodded. “I have to agree, but it should be fairly easy to clear up, if we’re wrong. If Derek doesn’t have gun residue on his hands, then that should clear him of suspicion…at least as far as this shooting. I need to head down to the police station to handle his booking and questioning.” Brian started to head out the door, but he turned and added, “You both need to stay on guard, just in case.”

Jake nodded.

Cassie added, “Please let us know about Derek. We’re headed to the hospital to find out how War is doing.”

Unfortunately, that was much easier said than done. When they arrived at the hospital, they found out War had been rushed to surgery to remove the bullet which was lodged dangerously close to his heart. He’d already gone into cardiac arrest once on the way to the hospital in the ambulance. Jake and Cassie settled into the waiting room, hoping for good news.

Five hours later, they were still waiting with no word when Cassie was surprised to look up and see Brian and Derek walking into the waiting room. Cassie rushed over to hug the haggard-looking Derek, although Jake tried to stop her. She turned to Brian, “Does this mean there aren’t any charges against him?”

“No, there are no charges. He showed no signs of gun residue. Also, we’re lucky War’s building has a significant video surveillance system which proved Derek wasn’t in the building at the time of the shooting.”

Jake looked thoughtful. “Does that mean you have video of who did shoot him?”

Brian nodded, “Yes, although he’s smart. He kept his face averted and covered. We actually have video that show both he and Derek walked right past each other.”

“So you saw him?” Cassie asked Derek.

“That’s what they tell me, but I wasn’t paying any attention. I was thinking about what I was going to say to War.”

“Derek, why are you here? You’ve had a long day and night. Why don’t you go home? I can call and let you know what happens with War.” Cassie told him. “Chances are, even when he comes out of surgery, they won’t let any of us see him since we aren’t family.”

Derek started shaking his head before Cassie even finished. His voice sounded tortured. “I can’t. I have to know he’s going to be okay. I need to talk to him. He could’ve died today. He still might. I need to be here.”

“Okay.” Cassie turned her confused look towards Brian who was watching Derek with pitying eyes. There was obviously more going on between him and War than she’d realized. “Come on,” Cassie linked her arm through Derek’s, “let’s go see if we can find some bad coffee while we wait.” She turned to reassure Jake, “We’ll be right back. We’re just going down the hall for a minute.” Jake turned to Brian who nodded she should be okay with Derek.

As they walked down the hall, Cassie spoke softly to Derek. “What’s going on between you and War? What’s happened between the two of you in the last week? I think I need to understand what’s really going on here.” She looked at Derek searchingly.

Derek looked tortured as he met her eyes. “Remember when I told you both War and I were late at the office the night before we found it vandalized. Something happened that night. War and I kissed.” He looked worriedly down the hall before turning back to her. “We hooked up.”

Cassie stopped walking in shock. “Wait, what? Hooked up? As in… had sex, hooked up?” She was looking at him with wide shocked eyes.

Derek gave a short nod and pulled her to keep her walking. He glanced around making sure no one was listening to their conversation.

“I don’t understand. War’s not gay.”

“No, he’s bi-sexual, like me, but he doesn’t want anyone to know. That night just happened. We didn’t plan it, but afterwards he was in a panic I was going to tell someone.”

“I don’t understand. What about Melissa?” Cassie asked, still trying to sort it all out.

“I got mad he was so embarrassed about what happened between us, and picked her up the next night. She was fun and honestly, I just wanted to show War I wasn’t going to mourn our non-relationship.” Derek rubbed a hand over his tired face. “I brought her to your party to hurt him. I think I succeeded and now he’s really hurt and I may never have the opportunity to apologize and make it up to him.”