Truth and Consequences (22 page)

Jason wasn’t sure where one wave of pain ended and the next began. His arm screamed, his chest and abdomen burned from Jim Ed’s blows, his mouth ached, and now agony shot through his right foot, because his cousin had just used the flashlight to break his big toe and probably most of the bones across the top of his foot. He leaned his head back, his neck unsteady, and forced a weak grin, the best “screw you” expression he could come up with under the circumstances.

“Hey, cousin,” he said, pushing the words out between dry, swollen lips. “Anyone ever tell you that you make UGA’s mascot look pretty?”

“Yeah? You make him look smart.” Jim Ed slapped the flashlight against his fleshy palm, sadistic pleasure lighting his face.

They were going to kill him. Jason closed his eyes against the thought, fighting the reality. They were going to kill him, but first they planned to make him suffer, see what they could get out of him. He didn’t want to die, was nowhere near ready to meet his Maker. He hadn’t told Kathleen he loved her yet, hadn’t made her any promises. He shied from the thought. He couldn’t think of her. If he did, he would break down and Jim Ed would have him and it would have all been for nothing…

“Wake up.” Jim Ed tapped his cheek, hard, the contact reverberating through his jaw. Jason’s eyes snapped open. Somewhere along the way, Thatcher had slipped from the room, but Jason didn’t remember when, the minutes running together in a hazy fog.

“I’m still…” He had to pause and gasp in a breath, his lungs burning. He flexed his uninjured foot. “…still smarter than you. Better trained.”

Jim Ed stepped closer, his face threatening. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Summoning his flagging strength, Jason lashed out with his left foot, making solid contact with the other man’s knee. The crack bounced around the room, followed by Jim Ed’s furious cursing. “Any idiot knows you…shackle legs.”

“You…son of a bitch.” Jim Ed doubled over, panting with pain, and Jason grinned, lips aching. He might have to die, but he was going to die fighting.

Like his father.

Enraged, spewing profanities, Jim Ed shoved the chair backward. Jason’s head collided with the floor and pain exploded behind his eyes. Jim Ed swung the flashlight down once more. Darkness rushed in on him, his last thoughts of Kathleen.

Leaning against the hood of Tick’s truck, Kathleen helped him spread the blueprints over the aerial map. They were a mile up the highway from Thatcher’s home, the closest place the helicopter could land without being in sight of the house. Unmarked units and a couple of state patrol cars lined the road, agents waiting, talking quietly with state troopers.

Tick scratched his temple and glanced at Botine. “Y’all didn’t see anything?”

“Jim Ed’s truck is in the drive. There’s three garages. Harding’s truck could be in any one of those.” Discouragement hovered in Botine’s voice.

Stanton Reed, newly appointed sheriff of Chandler County and Tick’s longtime partner from the FBI, circled an area on the map with his finger. “What’s the deal with the fencing in the pond?”

Botine shook his head. “The fool raises alligators. Goes out and feeds them like they’re pets or something. Dangles chickens over them. He’s just begging to get eaten.”

Cold certainty dropped Kathleen’s stomach to her feet. Horrified, trying to block the images Botine’s careless words invoked, she lifted her gaze to Tick’s and saw her own shocked realization reflected in his dark eyes.

She shook her head, a strangled moan slipping past her lips. “No.”

Tick wasn’t the kind of guy to mouth empty reassurances, but right now, she really wished he was. She wanted someone to take the terror away.

Instead, Tick crumpled the map and plans together and flung them into his truck. “We’ve got to get in there.”

Botine and Stanton exchanged a look. “What?” Botine demanded. “What did I miss?”

“If you wanted to get rid of a body without any evidence, what would you do with it?” Tick pulled a rifle from the rack behind the seat of his truck.

“You think he’s going to try to feed him to the gators?” Disbelief colored Stanton’s voice, but he pulled his own gun from the holster, checking the magazine.

“Yeah. That’s exactly what I think.”

“We can’t take the chopper,” Kathleen said, remembering the brick and wrought iron fence bordering the property. A thin wire along the top of the sedate fence hinted at an electrified surface. “If they hear us coming, they’ll shoot him. How are we going to get in there?”

“The iron fence stops at the edge of the pond on the back acres. There’s just chain link there.” Botine rubbed his chin, brows meeting in a thoughtful frown. “It shouldn’t be electrified.”

Hope jumped in Kathleen’s chest and she glanced up to meet Tick’s resigned gaze. She forced a smile, all of her focus on Jason, getting him out alive. That’s all that mattered, not that he’d never said he loved her, not that there was still so much they didn’t know about each other.

The only important thing was saving his life.

Tick sighed and tugged his cell phone from his belt, handing it to Stanton. “What’s a few alligators? Come on, Kath. He’s
your
boyfriend.”

“Fifteen minutes,” Stanton said, pocketing the phone. “And then we’re coming in after you, even if we have to use the chopper.”

Kathleen jogged into the woods, taking the lead and using the underbrush as cover. She struggled to keep her breathing even. Panic tapped at her resolve, looking for weaknesses, and she refused to give in. Panic was deadly. Control was everything.

Brambles pulled at her jeans and scratched her arms. She ran harder. With every step, memories flickered in her mind. Jason in uniform that first day, a small smile curving his mouth. On her deck, hungry for more than food, wanting her to see beyond the lies. Kissing her with more desire than she’d ever experienced with any other man. Making love to her, their bodies wrapped in white Egyptian cotton. Clinging to her last night, wanting her close but wanting her safe more. Making her walk away.

Tears blurred her vision, and she blinked them away.
Focus, Palmer. Tears later.

The woods opened up at the wild border of Thatcher’s pond. The chain link fence stood a few feet out in the murky water. Stopping at the edge of the woods, Kathleen took deep, even breaths, her throat aching. The water lay still, sparkling in the early morning sun.

“They sleep during the day.” Tick gasped the words near her ear. “Or sun themselves.”

She glanced at him over her shoulder. His chest heaved and she shook her head. “You’ve got to quit smoking.”

He waved off the comment and gestured toward the far corner of the pond. “The water’s shallower over there. We can go over the fence and use the woods for cover again. I want to be in that water the shortest time possible. They only look fat and sluggish.”

Kathleen nodded, eyeing the motionless water and the empty banks beyond. The house rose over the water. Nothing moved. She’d thought getting in would be the hard part. Now she knew it was only the beginning. Once inside, they still had to find Jason. And she had no idea where to start looking.

Tick tagged her arm and moved toward the water. “Come on.”

Jason hit the packed ground face first, the impact driving the air from his chest. He lay for a moment, his lungs clawing for oxygen, fingers curled into the coolness of damp red clay. Beyond the burning in his chest was the pain in his arm, his foot, his face, his head. He didn’t want to move. He wanted it over, for Jim Ed to finish this however he chose. He just wanted the waves of pain to end.

Kathleen
.

She wouldn’t want him to give in, give up. And he wanted to give her whatever she wanted.

Finally able to breathe again, he pulled together what strength he still had and pushed up on his good arm. Eyes closed against a wave of dizziness, he made it to his knees.

Jim Ed’s booted foot slammed into his stitched side. The stitches gave with a sick tearing and the momentum flipped him to his back.

“God!” He thought he screamed, but knew the plea came out a muffled moan instead. Tears slipped from his swollen eyes, joining the blood dripping down his face.

“You just won’t quit, will you?” Jim Ed leaned over him, unwilling admiration glittering in his eyes. “Give it up, cousin. It’s over.”

“No.” Spitting blood with a weak cough, Jason rolled to his side and struggled to his knees again.

Jim Ed grasped the collar of his T-shirt and dragged him to his feet. He half-pulled and half-pushed Jason forward, Jason’s mind so fogged now that he didn’t care where he was headed or what would happen. The training, the focus, the mission—everything was gone except the images fluttering in the last cognizant part of his brain.

Rich brown eyes with flecks of gold. Creamy skin under his fingertips. Full mouth kissing him. A rare sparkling laugh dancing along his veins like champagne.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, his head flopping forward.
I’m sorry, Kathleen
.

“Why?” Betrayal choked Jim Ed’s voice. “Why’d you do it?”

“Right thing to do.” He wasn’t even sure if he spoke the words aloud.

“Well, the right thing got you killed, boy. I was good to you, Jason. And you pay me back like this.” Jim Ed flung him forward and this time his body collided with a wood surface. The soft lapping of water soothed his ears and he opened slitted eyes, closing them immediately against the harsh brightness of sun sparkling off water. “Now you’re really gonna pay.”

He took a breath, his lungs weak and jittery. “Only care about yourself. Not me. Not…anyone. Yourself.”

“Yeah? Look where it’s gotten me. Look where you are.”

“Reese!” Calvert’s voice rang through the still air. “Move away from him.”

Safe. The word hovered in Jason’s mind, the concept still unreal. Maybe he dreamed that deep drawl, full of steely command.

“Go to hell, Calvert.” Hatred vibrated in Jim Ed’s growl.

“Drop it! Get away from him.”

Gunfire cracked, over Jason’s head and in the distance. The booted foot connected with his body again and he rolled with the force, falling, until water closed over his head. Cuts stung, needled by the icy water, and he gulped, his lungs filling before he struggled upward. He surfaced, gasping, his movements stiff and uncoordinated. Shouts filled the air, broken up by the whup-whup of a chopper landing. God, he was so far gone, he was hallucinating, imagining things.

Black dots danced at the edges of his blurred vision, the pond sucking him under again. Water rushed up his nose, choking him. Something brushed his leg and he tried to recoil, his limbs refusing to obey his fuzzy mind.

He kicked upward again, barely getting his head above the surface before he sank once more. The blackness tunneled in, his only awareness of cold, rank water around him, filling him. Any sense of panic disappeared, swallowed by blessed resignation.

A strong arm looped around his chest, pulling him up. His head broke the surface. Oxygen invaded his body, weak coughs wracking his lungs. The arm holding him moved with the rhythmic strokes of a strong swimmer.

“Stan, help me get him out.” Calvert’s urgent voice, next to his head.

He floated, an arm supporting his neck and back. A sensation of movement, then hands under his armpits, dragging him up while other hands kept his body stable. Pain shot through him, water burbling from his throat and out his mouth.

Lying on his back, light on his face, but he couldn’t open his eyes. His pulse thundering in his ears. Hands on him, assessing, sending more pain along his nerves. Blood and water in his throat, chest aching as he vomited. Hands turning him.

Darkness flooding his mind, voices around him.

Jim Ed yelling in the distance, pain ravaging his shouts. Vestiges of the Miranda rights floated to him.

“Pulse is over a hundred.” Male voice, one he didn’t know.

“Going into shock.” Calvert’s voice again, grim and raw. Something covered his chest and stomach. “C’mon, Harding, stay with us. Hell, there’s a
dent
in his head.”

“Did you see that gator?”

“See it? I
felt
it. Damn thing brushed our legs.”

On his back again, his head tilted back. A cloth wiping his face.

“Lifeflight’s in the air.” Botine? “ETA five minutes.”

Memory flickered. He wanted…he needed to…

“If he makes it that long. We’re losing his pulse.”

“Jason?” Kathleen. Tears in her voice. “Jason!”

“Get her back, Botine. Damn it, where’s the EMTs?”

Kathleen. Love you.

A black void closed in.

Nothing.

Kathleen fought Botine’s restraining arm. “Damn it, Will.”

His hold tightened. “Stop it, Palmer. Let them take care of him.”

Sobs ravaged her chest. Tears streamed down her face, and she didn’t bother to brush them away. This wasn’t happening.
This wasn’t happening
. He wasn’t dying in front of her on the dock, with Botine keeping her from him. She wasn’t losing him, too.

“No pulse.” The look Stanton Reed exchanged with Tick stabbed at her.

Tick leaned over Jason, shaking his shoulder. “Harding? Harding?” He caught Stanton’s gaze. “Unresponsive. Starting CPR.”

“Oh, God.” The sobbing moan slipped past her lips, her body sagging against Botine. She couldn’t close her eyes, couldn’t turn away.

“Clear his airway, Stan.”

“I’m
trying
, damn it. There’s too much blood.”

Oh, please.

Finally, Stanton puffed two breaths into Jason’s mouth. Tick knelt beside him, hands ready to begin compression. The steady chop of a helicopter grew in the distance.

Don’t be too late. Please don’t be too late.

Stanton and Tick moved with the precision of a well-oiled piston, a puff of air for every five compressions. She held her breath, her focus on the artificial rise and fall of his chest. Around her controlled chaos reigned, agents swarming the grounds, tending to an injured Jim Ed, keeping Thatcher in custody on the deck.

Her existence narrowed to the scene on the dock. Nothing else mattered. Stanton lifted his head. Tick’s hands stopped moving. Stanton turned his head over Jason’s mouth. Listening for breath sounds. His fingers slid to Jason’s pulse.

“Continue CPR.”

Her face crumpled, fresh tears spilled over her lashes. The chop-chop grew louder, the water rippling with the helicopter’s approach. An engine whined. Tick pushed down on Jason’s chest, Stanton breathed for him.

Footsteps pounded on the wood, a stretcher rattling in time with the beats. An EMT knelt by Jason’s body, obstructing her view. “What have we got?”

Tick’s terse voice filled in the details, the EMT already busy placing a blood pressure cuff on Jason’s arm and inserting an IV line. After moving his body to the stretcher, they bagged him, taking over the CPR, and Tick moved out of the way. He looked up, his gaze locking with Kathleen’s.

The hopelessness in his dark eyes took her breath. He thought Jason was gone. She could see the knowledge in his face, guilt and sorrow etched into the tense lines bracketing his mouth.

She shook her head. “No. He’s not. He can’t be.”

Tick moved forward and Botine’s arm dropped away.

Kathleen sniffled, her nose running, and brushed tears from her face. “He’s not dying.”

The helicopter lifted off, dust and bits of grass blowing across the pond.

Enfolded in Tick’s shaking arms, his damp clothing smelling of pond water, she cried and pounded a fist against the wall of his chest. “He’s not dying, Tick. He’s not.”

He cupped her nape, stroking her hair. He didn’t offer reassurances. She shook her head, trying to catch her breath between the harsh, racking sobs. Her voice cracked with each word. “We weren’t too late. We weren’t.”

Tick stepped back and looked away. He swallowed, his throat moving. Kathleen dropped her gaze to his hands, specked with blood. Jason’s blood.

He reached for her. “Come on. We’ll meet them at the hospital.”

She let him lead her away, paralyzed by a fear beyond prayer.