Reaper (21 page)

Dallas must have read something in Zack’s expression. Wrapping his arm around Zack’s waist, he said quietly, “Now you have a
new
family.”

“Indeed, he does,” Pattie said emphatically, smiling in delight. “And we have a second son.”

Dallas looked at Zack, and they both broke out laughing. “How about you don’t call him that, Mom,” Dallas said. “It conjures up images I’m not sure I can deal with.”

It took Pattie a second to get what he meant, then she laughed too. “All right. The… No, that doesn’t work either.”

“The boy next door who spent all his time hanging around here, so we thought of him as a second son,” George suggested.

“That works,” Dallas said.

They all agreed it did.

After that, they went out into the backyard where George barbecued burgers and hotdogs for lunch. There was potato salad and ice cream as well, and by the time the meal was over, everyone was happily sated.

Then, since it was getting late, and Zack and Dallas still had to drive to the lake, where the boat they were renting waited, they said their goodbyes.

“Promise you’ll come back soon,” Pattie said, giving Zack a tight hug. “Maybe for Christmas?”

“We will, if Dallas can get the time off.”

“You had better,” George said, giving Dallas a stern look.

“I will, I will.” Dallas hugged his father then his mom. “Love you both.”

“We love you too. And I’m pretty sure… No, I
know
we love Zack as well,” Pattie replied, kissing Zack’s cheek.

As they drove away from the house, Zack sighed contentedly. “They are good people. But then I figured that they would be. They raised one of the best men I’ve ever met.”

“One of?” Dallas said with a mock pout.

“Okay.
The
best man. The one I love, heart and soul.”

“Back at you,” Dallas replied, reaching over to hold Zack’s hand. “Now, and forever.”

* * * *

“And we actually relaxed and unwound,” Zack commented when their vacation was over and they’d returned to the city. “Now, back to the grind.” He smiled, adding, “Until Christmas.”

Sometimes, but not often, they missed being Reaper and Wrath. But as Dallas pointed out, “We made the right choice. The Rattlers replaced us quite admirably.”

And, Zack added, smiling, “The new Off-the-Street is serving more of the homeless community in Uptown than even Brian had thought possible.”

“Life is good,” Zack said softly late one evening as he and Dallas cuddled in bed. “We made a difference and now—”

“We can be just us,” Dallas replied. “Two men with the time, finally, to show just how much we love each other.”

“And there’s not a damn thing wrong with that.”

Also available from Pride Publishing:

The Hit Man Cometh

Edward Kendrick

Excerpt

Chapter One

“One step closer and you’re a dead man.” Bram kept his gun aimed squarely at Gavin’s chest.

“I’m dead either way, so I have nothing to lose,” Gavin retorted with a grim smile, placing one foot in front of the other.

“Why? Why are you forcing me to do this?”

“Better you than someone I don’t know.”

“It doesn’t have to end this way.”

Gavin smiled crookedly. “Got a better idea?”

“Yeah, team up with me.”

“Marsdon would love that, considering he’s the one who sent you after me.”

“He doesn’t have to know,” Bram replied quietly.

“You’d turn on him?”

“Let’s just say it’s an option.”

Gavin frowned pensively. “If I were someone else, would it be?”

Bram shrugged, not lowering the gun. “Probably not. I’ve worked for him before. You know that. I complete a contract.”

Gavin glanced at his script before replying. “Four times by last count.”

“Yep. I won’t say they were righteous kills, but they at least had some logic behind them. Not”—Bram grinned wryly—“that it matters to me one way or the other.”

“So what makes this different?” Gavin couldn’t resist rolling his eyes at that line.

“Cut!” Chris Filmore, the director, called out. “Damn it, Gav, do you think you might act a little more suspicious? The two of you are supposed to be bitter enemies after what happened. Now he’s suggesting you team up. That’s not supposed to sit right with you.”

“This whole damned play doesn’t sit right with me,” Gavin snarled, walking to the edge of the stage to stare down at Chris. “Who wrote this dreck?” He waved his script. “Like I don’t know. The Tom Clancy wannabe you’re trying to get into your bed.”

“You read it before you auditioned. You knew what…”

Gavin held up his hand to stop him. “I read
something
. For damned sure it wasn’t this. He changes it on a whim, and you let him.”

“To make it more exciting,” Chris replied defensively.

“Bull. This”—Gavin tossed the script at the director—“is so fucked up even a two-year-old would laugh at it.” Jumping off the stage, he spat, “I quit. Sue me if you want to but I’m not letting my name be associated with something this bad. No way, no how.” With that, he strode up the aisle of the auditorium, barely noticing the man who sat in the back row, before pushing his way through the doors to the lobby.

* * * *

Mick rapped one knuckle against his teeth as he watched the handsome, dark-haired man walk past him.
What an ass. No wonder someone wants him dead.
He chuckled under his breath as he got up to follow Gavin.
He has no idea how close to reality the play is, even if the author is, as he put it, a Clancy wannabe.

Mick didn’t know who had hired him for the job. The contract had come, as always, in a heavily encrypted email from his handler. The down payment, once he’d agreed to take the hit, had been wired to his offshore account. All he’d been told was where to find Mr. Gavin Wilde. Nothing about why.
It could be the result of some petty spat with a girlfriend—or ex-girlfriend. Perhaps another actor wanting the part. If it’s the latter, maybe the hit will be called off now since Mr. Wilde just walked away.
He shrugged.
Somehow I doubt it’s anything so minor. People don’t pay my asking price unless someone has done them some serious hurt.

He followed Gavin out of the theater into the afternoon heat, muttering, “This is Colorado, not Arizona. Why the hell does it feel like a sauna in early July?”

He chuckled when a pair of women walking by smiled, then one of them said, “That’s what we were wondering too.”

After wiping the sweat off his face, thankful that his blond hair was short now and not as long as it had been two weeks ago, he started after Gavin, keeping his distance. Not that the man would be aware of him, or anyone for that matter, Mick figured.
Not as fast and as angrily as he’s striding along at the moment.

When Gavin turned left onto a side street then went into a parking lot, Mick waited to be certain he had actually got into the dark red sports car Mick knew belonged to the actor. Then he hightailed it back to where he’d parked his motorcycle. He wasn’t afraid of losing Gavin in the interim, as he’d put a tracking device on the car before going into the theater to check out his target.

Five minutes later, Mick, on his black Suzuki Bandit, hung back several car lengths behind Gavin as the actor veered onto Speer Boulevard. From the direction he was going in, Mick figured Gavin was heading home.

Mick knew he lived in a high-rise not too far from the Cherry Creek Mall, a very upscale shopping center in east Denver. He had cased the building soon after hitting town. Gavin was on the tenth floor in a north-facing condo, according to the information Mick had on him. The building’s security was excellent, though nothing that Mick couldn’t bypass with time or guile—whichever suited the moment. With some jobs, he might have been pissed that there were no tall buildings close enough to it that he could use one as a sniper base to take out his target, if things didn’t work out right. Not with this one, however. That wasn’t an option.

As soon as Gavin pulled into the parking area on the north side of the building, Mick found a place in the lot across the street. From where he sat, he could watch the balcony of Gavin’s condo with the pair of high-powered binoculars he kept locked in his saddlebag along with the case holding his DRD tactical rifle, among other weapons. He was rewarded when the man walked onto the balcony a few minutes later, a glass in one hand, to lean against the railing.

Regretting your little temper tantrum?
Mick figured, from the frown on Gavin’s face, he might be doing just that.

Suddenly Gavin slammed his hand on the railing, spun around and went back inside. Less than five minutes later, Mick saw him leaving the building, heading to where he’d parked his car.

Now what’s going on?
Mick didn’t have to wonder for long. He followed Gavin about ten blocks before the actor pulled into a parking spot just off Third on Clayton. Mick tailed him on his bike as Gavin walked to Second and entered The Cricket. Then he drove to the lot in front of a large health food store, locked the bike and strolled back to the bar. The place was busy, and loud. Mick eventually found a spot at the end of the bar where he could watch Gavin, who sat alone in a booth at the back of the room.

Not too much later, a young woman went over to Gavin, leaning on her hands on the table as she spoke to him. He smiled at her, nodded, and she slid in across from him.
One fact verified.
His reputation as a womanizer holds true, from the look of it.

Twenty minutes later, after drinking the beers a waitress had brought over for them, Gavin moved to sit beside the young woman. After a few more beers, the couple left. Mick followed them out into the cool air of midevening, then walked to where he’d parked his bike. When he checked the tracker, he realized the pair was headed back to Gavin’s condo.

Or at least Gavin was, Mick soon found out. He got there just in time to see him park, exit the car, alone, then enter his building.

“Mucho strange,” Mick muttered. He decided to give it a few minutes just in case the woman had driven over separately. When she didn’t show, he kept an eye on the windows of Gavin’s place, following the on and off of the lights as Gavin moved from what Mick knew—from the information he had—was the condo’s living room on through to the bedroom. One by one, the lights popped on then off and soon darkness settled throughout the condo. “Pretty damned early to be going to bed,” he commented. He was about to take off and figure out how to get into Mr. Wilde’s place much later that night to do the job he’d been hired for. Then he saw a brief glow in the living room, as though Gavin had opened the front door, letting light in from the hallway.

Interesting. Is he heading to that woman’s place, or somewhere else? Only one way to find out.
He revved up his bike and waited.

* * * *

Gavin was just to the west of Golden, on Sixth, heading toward One Nineteen, when he spotted the motorcycle. It took him a moment to realize he’d seen it before, earlier in the day, as he’d driven home from the theater.

“Coincidence? Maybe,” he murmured. “But I shouldn’t count on it.” He smiled dryly, checking the rear-view mirror again.

He continued well past Central City before taking a right onto a narrow two-lane road. A quarter of a mile later, just beyond a sharp curve, he pulled off to the side, the engine idling as he waited to see if he really was being followed. When the cyclist didn’t appear, he figured it was just his overactive imagination at work. He continued on, until he came to a barely visible lane veering off to the left. A quick check as he pulled onto it let him know that no one had gone down it since his last visit—unless they’d walked in—as there were no fresh tire tracks in the dirt.

The lane wended its way through the tall pines for several miles before narrowing even more until the lower tree branches occasionally brushed the roof and sides of Gavin’s car. Finally, he came to a small grassy clearing, with a cabin sitting in the center of it.

“Home sweet home away from home,” he declared, following the last of the lane around to the rear of the cabin, parking, then retrieving his bag from the back seat.

He entered the cabin through the back door, walking down the short hallway into the living room and from there into the bedroom off to one side, using only the moonlight streaming in through the wide windows for illumination. Setting the bag down on the queen-size bed, he quickly unpacked. Not clothes—there were enough jeans and shirts hanging in the closet—but books and DVDs. Some of the books ended up on the nightstand. The rest of them, and the DVDs, he put on the shelves in the living room that held a small entertainment center. Then, still using just the moonlight, he walked into the kitchen. Taking a bottle of water from the fridge, he thought about fixing something to eat.

“Nah. I had enough calories in the beers tonight. Gotta keep my lean and hungry look.” He chuckled at that thought and took a deep drink of water. “Not that it matters at the moment, I guess. What the hell possessed me to pull a snit fit just because of a lousy script? God only knows I’ve acted in worse plays in my day.” As he talked to himself, he wandered back into the living room, stopping at one of the windows to stare out at the forest surrounding the cabin. For a second, he thought he saw something moving out there.
Stop being so paranoid
.
Probably just a mountain lion or a raccoon.
He was tempted to check it out, just to be certain. Then, with a shake of his head, he finished the water, tossing the bottle in the trashcan on his way to the bathroom.