Ring of Truth (Devlin Security Force Book 2) (28 page)

Rousso spat out a string of words in a language Cort didn’t recognize. The blistering outburst could be nothing but curses upon Leon. When the bastard wound down, he yanked Mara to her feet. She gasped when he again dug the pistol’s muzzle against her throat.

He turned to Cort. “But
you
know where the jewels are hidden. Why else would you have driven to Maine under cover of darkness?”

“Cort, don’t tell hi—”

Rousso clipped her on the cheekbone with the pistol butt.

She yelped, cringing to the side and gripping the table, but he held her fast.

Cort started forward. “You asshole!”

“Stop,” Rousso ordered, pointing the pistol at her.

Cort stepped back, hands fisted at his sides. “Mara?”

Blood welled from a small cut where purple already stained the skin. She managed a nod. A tear trickled down her swelling cheek but she looked more furious than afraid.

Hang in there, sweetheart.

“Take me to the hiding place and I will not harm her. I will let you both live.” Rousso pocketed the ring pieces. “Once I have the jewels in my possession, you will be free to go.”

Cort ground his teeth until his jaw ached. No choice. But the camp was
his
territory. If he could surprise Rousso, he could get the gun. They could escape into the woods. “You have me cornered. I’ll show you where Leon hid the crown jewels.”

“Much better.” Rousso gestured toward the door with his pistol. “Outside.”

When Cort opened the door and walked into the drizzle, he saw another vehicle parked beside his. He hadn’t heard the big black SUV pull up.

“My... colleagues,” Rousso said. His arch tone made them seem more like
minions
than equals.

Two people exited the SUV. The widow Hauptman in a hooded rain jacket. The other was a human monolith who had to be her brother Hugo, likely the man who’d mugged Mara. Six foot seventy and wide as a UPS truck. He held a pistol, smaller than Rousso’s but equally lethal.

Three of them. Hell fucking damn. They were knee deep in goat shit now.

And puddles. Droplets of misty drizzle chilled him and slid off the bridge of his nose, and plopped into the icy water around his boots. Good. If he was cold, so were they.

He watched the interaction among the three of them while Rousso brought his cohorts up to date. Twyla’s eyes narrowed into furious little black beads as Rousso finished his narrative. Hugo, tight by his sister’s side, looked blankly at everyone. Easily manipulated, Cort observed, but loyal to his sister.

No love lost between Twyla and Rousso. Wouldn’t hurt to kick up dust between them.

“Twyla, I’m wondering why you never reported your so-called break-in to the cops,” he said, stretching his stiff lips into a smug grin.

“Jones is not only curious one,” Rousso said icily.

Flags of color stood out even beneath the artificial pink on the woman’s cheekbones. She sputtered like a dying lawnmower. “Didn’t see no need of cops. Jones was the only one needed to believe I had a real robbery. After you and Hugo trashed my house, you scared the life out of me when I got home from work. Cops’d only add to the mess.”

Cort wasn’t surprised the woman who sealed her furniture in clear plastic didn’t want a mess. If he’d had more time, the woman’s vanity might have brought the cops to her house for a different reason, one that could’ve wrapped up the search. And Mara wouldn’t be shaking in her sneakers with a gun against her soft skin.

He bit down hard on the memories, the emotions that threatened to spring free. He wouldn’t think about that, about her. They were done, once this was over. He’d known it all along. Now he’d seen that truth in her eyes.

Twyla aimed a hate-filled glare at him. “And
he
ain’t my boss. We work
together
.”

Hugo’s broad forehead crimped. “Yeah, work together.”

“In a manner of speak,” Rousso said, his accent thicker, his English less fluent, but his tone no less sinister. “Remember who is in charge, Mrs. Hauptman. Your ring piece would be useless trinket if not for my enterprise. Do not let this man cause trouble between us.”

“Worth a shot.” Cort figured his mouth was his only weapon. So far.

Fear shone too bright in Mara’s eyes, but underlain with something else as she studied him. Steel. Encouragement.

And trust.

Jesus.
Her fear nearly tore him apart, but it was the trust, trust in him to get them out of this hell, that scorched his insides like battery acid. After he’d doubted her, she still trusted him?

***

Mara slid from the SUV into the fog. Trees and underbrush surrounded the small party. Mist blotted out the sky. Despair lancing her heart, she shivered against the chill.
How will anyone ever find us in this wilderness?

“Move,” Rousso ordered, gesturing to her with his wicked black pistol. “This will be right place, or you will pay for your man’s deceit.”

Her man. No longer. But Cort wouldn’t risk her life, even now that he despised her.

Twyla Hauptman had driven the rented SUV, with Rousso and her in the back. The bumpy ride on the rutted track stretched her nerves as taut as her tennis racquet. Swollen and puffy, her bloodied cheek throbbed. Rousso offered her a tissue. She refused. She would take nothing from the bastard.

Cort hopped down from his pickup, in front of the SUV, with Hugo holding a gun on him. She’d known as soon as she heard Hugo speak he was the behemoth who’d accosted her in her foyer. She would recognize that raspy voice anywhere, anytime.

Cort’s grim features were granite, his eyes set in cool, piercing bullet-gray. A mask of vigilance. He led the way down a narrow path to what appeared to be a log shed with a rotting wooden shingle roof. Beside the camp, the lake shimmered through the rain’s blurry curtain. No “fountain” in sight. The spring lay in the woods.

His clever attempt at dividing the enemy buoyed her. Some. Enough to layer her terror with determination. So far only in the form of poison-filled glares Rousso’s way. Not that she got any reaction. But at least her heart rate slowed from four Ghz to one. Well, maybe two.

She’d failed Cort when he began to trust her, betrayed his precious trust. Rousso must’ve known about the Maine cabin from some earlier conversation he’d overheard. Even her general
“halfway across the country”
must’ve clued him in. Why did she tell Cassie anything? She’d ruined everything.

Love for Cort welled up inside her, an ache that gripped her heart for what she’d lost. She was her father’s daughter after all. He’d betrayed everything he believed in for a chance at fortune. She’d betrayed Cort’s trust, and for nothing. Her chest ached as if she inhaled broken glass.

Worse for him, she’d proven him right.
Trust no one.
Not even himself. He would retreat into these woods. He would exist, not
live
, his days behind a wall of loneliness.

That is, if they lived through this day. The thought nearly brought her to her knees.

Suck it up, Mara Lin.

She swallowed a hot, hard lump and straightened her shoulders. Since that first night she met him, she’d learned to be stronger in the face of danger. To survive this day, she had to be strong. She had to be brave. She had to be smart.

Any chance with Cort was blown to hell. But maybe she could help give them both a chance to escape. She could scream at the idea the Centaur gang could end up with the crown jewels. Any chance of redemption for Cort would be lost.

She’d seen in Cort’s eyes he was primed to take advantage of an opening. She would do anything to create that opening.

Anything.

When they reached the small fishing shack, Rousso shoved her toward Twyla. She stumbled on the rough ground. As she dropped onto all fours, pebbles stabbed pain into her palms. She bit her lower lip against an automatic outcry.

“Son of a bitch!” Cort spat. “You didn’t have to hurt her again.”

“Just reminder. This will be truth,” the Centaur thug sneered, his accent even thicker with the tension rife around them. “Or Hugo
will
hurt Mara. Sometimes my large friend does not know his strength.”

His mouth a grim slash, Cort pointed to a sheet of weathered plywood weighted to the ground with a football-size rock. Dead leaves and evergreen needles littered the surface. “That’s the hiding place.”

Mara pushed to her feet. Blood droplets bubbled from abrasions on her palms. She opened her hands to the drizzle.
Use the pain to focus.

Twyla tugged Mara’s braid to pull her closer. She now held Hugo’s pistol. Maybe they didn’t trust King Kong with a gun for more than a few minutes. Mara, Hugo, and Twyla stood no more than five feet from the lake shore, a good twenty feet beyond where Cort and Rousso jockeyed for position beside the plywood.

Mara sent the widow her version of Cort’s death stare, then averted her gaze. She didn’t dare look at Hugo, whose beefy hands could crush her. Instead, she focused on Cort.

His gaze flickered toward her and away with no hint of emotion. “No deception, Rousso. This is an old root cellar, wood lined with stones, used to store potatoes and other winter vegetables back when this was a year-round farmstead.”

Rousso’s eyes widened. “In the ground? But the dampness, the weather?”

“Gold and jewels would be fine in any case. But remember the verse—
’STEEL WITHIN THE WOODEN HOLD.’
Leon must’ve reinforced the original.”

Mara’s chest tightened so she could barely breathe. Handing over the jewels was a death sentence. The longer to open the “wooden hold” and pull them out, the longer they lived to stop this travesty. She scrambled for an idea.

“Rousso, why does Centaur want these crown jewels so much?” she asked. “There must be others much easier to steal.”

“Not your concern,” he barked. “Is just important.”

“I bet your boss has private collectors lined up to buy either pieces or the whole collection,” she went on. “You’ll be in big trouble if that hiding place is empty.”

“He’s in trouble with his boss already,” Cort said, studying his enemy. “All those deaths, the cops, the fuck-ups. I hear Centaur doesn’t allow mistakes.” He made a slashing motion across his throat. “What about it, Rousso?”

The flush on the Centaur agent’s face and the fever in his eyes screamed of desperation. “Perceptive, Jones. But you will not trick me to reveal more. Open it.”

Cort knelt on the damp grass. He brushed away the winter’s detritus with his hands, then picked up the rock.

“Do not.” Rousso raised his pistol.

Mara recognized the longer nose on the weapon’s muzzle as a silencer. Who would hear them in these woods anyway? The inanity of it nearly provoked a giggle. She started to shake off the delirium but a spasm in her cheek made her gasp.

“Wouldn’t think of it,” Cort said mildly, not even looking up. He tossed the rock aside. The plywood lifted easily and flipped over and out of the way.

Mara was too far away to see into the hole no matter how she craned her neck.

Twyla took a step forward. So did her brother.

“Stay there,” Rousso ordered the widow. “Keep gun on her.”

Glowering at the man, Twyla returned to Mara’s side. The brother took another step, and another, then hovered midway between the two groups. Curious but afraid to cross Rousso.

Everyone’s attention was on the hiding place of the Gramornia crown jewels.

And not on Mara.

She tore her gaze from the dark hole to study the older woman. With the hood covering her perfectly teased and sprayed helmet, Twyla’s peripheral vision was impaired. Sure, she had the gun. At the moment aimed only generally toward Mara. Twyla didn’t look any more comfortable with that pistol than Mara would be. And the rain was making the grip slippery, less than secure. Could she use the gun if she managed to wrest it away? She would have to.

God help me.

If she screwed up, she would die. Cort next. Hell, they were both going to die anyway. No way would Rousso let them live. She drew in a deep breath to steady her fried nerves.

Cort, what do I do?

But his focus was on the hole. If she made a move, could he react in time?

“What the hell’s in there?” Twyla’s grating whine yanked Rousso’s head toward them and yanked the chance from Mara.

Rousso stepped closer to the hole and peered inside. “A steel safe. Water and fireproof kind. Good. For last time, open it.”

Cort drilled both hands through his hair and shook off the rainwater. On his belly, he reached inside. A metallic clank resounded through the small clearing. Again. And again.

“What?” Rousso scowled, exasperated.

Cort sat back on his heels and erupted in a belly laugh. More of an animal howl than mirth. Not quite what she expected.

“I can’t open it without the ring.
The whole ring
,” Cort said, as he subsided into a chuckle. He shook his head, amazement on his face. Respect too, if she read him right. “My old man created an unbeatable puzzle. No one involved in the burglary, himself included, could retrieve the jewels without the others. I thought the raised symbols were a key to something. Shit, the symbols
are
the key.”

He slanted a glance toward her. Checking on her wellbeing? Sending a message?

A key.
Of course. Damn, she wished she could see. But this might be their chance. She was ready—on the balls of her feet, arms loose. God, did she dare? She would have only one chance.

“What do you mean,
the key
?” Rousso demanded.

“The safe is locked. Did you think he’d leave it here unlocked for years? To open it, you need a key. Each of the five raised symbols has to fit its matching slot. Only then can it be turned and the tumblers will fall into place. I need the complete puzzle ring.”

“Move back.” When Cort obeyed, Rousso withdrew a penlight from his windbreaker pocket. He aimed it inside the hole and studied what he saw for a moment.

“Yes, this is right. Clever.” He backed up and gestured to Cort to resume his position beside the in-ground safe.

He returned the flashlight to his pocket and instead withdrew the three pieces Cort had yielded earlier, plus a fourth. Falco’s, Mara assumed. He tossed them to the ground beside Cort.

“That’s only four,” Cort pointed out as he tried to fit the last piece with the others. “This is an outside piece. Where’s the missing one?”

Everyone turned to Twyla Hauptman.

Mara had assumed Rousso possessed it along with the others. Twyla kept herself and Hugo in the game by maintaining possession of her one asset, even though she shared the inside wording with Rousso. It probably suited him to use her and her brother for his schemes to obtain the others.