“HERE’S THE THING, dick,” Kelly said, stepping out onto the back porch of a house that Jack had decided, during the last couple of hours of freezing his ass off, was a hideout par excellence, sitting as it did on the edge of a swamp. If nothing else, this much they’d done right.
He didn’t like his odds of being discovered. And he sure as hell didn’t like his odds of getting out of here alive. Pretty damn humiliating to make it out of Chechnya and the Sudan with a couple of bullet wounds, to spend a month in the hold of a cargo ship, crossing the Pacific three times while being held hostage by the trafficking ring before he’d escaped, given no light, little water, and even less food, only to succumb to some snotty kids in a swamp.
He was old. He was soft. He didn’t like being either. And he missed Perry beyond belief. So much so that not telling her how he felt was going to be his life’s biggest regret.
When the motley crew inside hadn’t been bickering like a flock of biddies, and his own teeth hadn’t been chattering loud enough to break glass, he’d heard a diesel pickup or two chugging in the distance. But that was it. He could’ve shot off a flare gun and still gone unnoticed unless he’d timed it just right.
They’d tied him up, but they needn’t have bothered. It was the middle of the night. He had no idea where he was. And without more than a quarter moon to guide him, he wasn’t about to step onto a road and over a bump that might end up having bone-crushing jaws.
He couldn’t imagine what Eckhardt must be going through. While securing Jack to the frame of a folding metal chair, Beefy Chris had taken great pleasure in pointing out where Jack would be able to see the other man once the sun rose over the swamp.
And since his pleasure-taking had also extended to circulation-strangling knots, Jack couldn’t help but wonder about the pain of Eckhardt’s bonds, and whether or not he could see the house from where the gang had tied him to a cypress root and left him to rot.
Kelly let the screen door slam shut behind her, pulled the string on the overhead light. Jarred back to the present by both, Jack glanced over.
Kelly leaned her flat ass on the porch railing and crossed her arms. “Dayton Eckhardt owes a lot of money to me and the boys. Money he doesn’t have to pay us, you know why?”
Because you didn’t leave him with his wallet when you left him to die?
“Because when he tore the company out of our backyard like a big bad weed, he cut loose everyone but management. That included those of us with the biggest stake in Eckton’s new software. The one we developed. We. As in me and Chris and Pauly and Kevin.”
And to think. I’d pegged you as director of human resources. Or maybe fashion.
“Eckton filed the legal crap, the trademarks or copyrights or patents. Whatever. So Eckton owns the system. Our system. It was our teamwork, our vision. And it’s our work that within a year is going to turn that billionaire in Redmond, Washington into the last best thing.”
I’m sure Mr. Gates is shaking in his Gucci’s.
“And now we have nothing. No stock options. No income. No residuals. We have shit. Got it? So we figured it was payback time. Let Dayton Eckhardt learn what it is to not only have zero, but to be a zero.”
That was when Jack finally opened his mouth. “This is revenge? That’s it?”
“Revenge. Making a statement. Seeing the man suffer.” She shrugged. “Take your pick.”
“Suffering. That’s the reason for the amputation?”
“Seemed like fun, you know, putting the righteous fear into the cops and the wifey. You saw Pauly’s message in the warehouse, didn’t you? We’ve got what we want. A long, painful goodbye for Mr. Eckhardt.” She tucked her fingernails into her palm and studied them. “Only now we’ve got this big dick of a problem. Namely you. So do we leave you here? Or take you with us?”
“Guess that depends on where you’re going to go,” he said, recognizing that smart-mouthing this chick wasn’t going to earn him any points but, hell on a pirogue, this was nothing but revenge?
She snorted, started picking at the polish on one of her nails. “Funny thing about that. If you’d asked me earlier today, I could’ve told you. Now I’m not so sure.”
Jack dropped his head back and cackled. “Then Della was right. You and Chris were loading up the Jeep to skip out on poor Pauly and Kevin.”
Kelly’s gaze shot to his. “She told you that?”
He shook his head. “She told Kevin that.”
“God, he’s such a moron,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“And what does that make you, seeing as how you’ve been with him since eighth grade?” Jack prodded, watching for any glint of emotion.
If he hadn’t been watching, he would’ve missed the flash that came and was gone. “Right now, it makes me the one everyone wants. The one everyone’s looking to for a decision.”
“Heavy load for those shoulders of yours.”
She shrugged. “You look smart enough to know that size doesn’t matter,” she said, and tapped a finger to her head. “It’s all about what’s up here.”
“Then why don’t you use what’s up there and cut me loose.” He jerked once at the ropes. “Eckhardt, too. If we’re both good to go, then it’s no harm, no foul. We all get up and have our Wheaties for breakfast.”
“Puh-lease,” she said, with a defeatist’s sigh and a shake of her head. “It’s Kevin who’s the moron, remember. Not me. I’m not planning to spend time behind bars.”
“You didn’t think about that before you started this?” he asked.
“All I thought about was putting Eckhardt through some heavy-duty shit. Just like he did with us. Payback’s a bitch, haven’t you heard?”
“So, now what?”
“Actually, I was thinking of ending it all right here.” She reached for the gun, shook her head, rubbed the mouth of the barrel along the side of her ear. A cold chill settled in to scrape at the pit of Jack’s stomach. Morons this bunch might be, but stupid they were not.
“Okay, look. That’s not going to solve anything. And you’re smart enough to know deals are made all the time. Especially with a lot of juice to bring to the table. Which I’m pretty sure you have.”
For several long seconds, she stared into Jack’s eyes. Hers were lifeless, cold, flat. He worried that it was too late, that he’d waited too long to speak, that he should have tried to bond with her, shown empathy instead of sarcasm, let her see he was on her side—even though he wasn’t—and talk her in off the ledge.
Except then, in the next breath, she doubled over and spit out a laugh, waving the gun like a flag. “You really thought I was serious, didn’t you? Damn, am I good, or what? No wonder Kevin needed a psychic to tell him he’s out of the picture. I still can’t believe he couldn’t figure out for himself why we left him at the reporter’s house.”
Jack closed his eyes, shook his head. Son of a flippin’ bitch. He and the horse he’d rode in on were both screwed. The only deal this one would be interested in was a part in a teen slasher flick—as the slasher.
Biting down on a whole lot of words he knew he’d better not say, he looked back up. “What now?”
She took one long hop toward him, leaned down and flicked the end of his nose. “Tell ya what, dick. As soon as I find out, you’ll be the first to know.”
And then she yanked on the chain pull, leaving him in darkness as she walked out of his life.
16
“YOU KNOW I’m not going to handle it well if they don’t find him,” Perry said to Della. The two women were sitting together at the kitchen table, as they’d found themselves doing so often lately—and always, it seemed, in the middle of the night.
With Jack’s kidnapping falling under local jurisdiction, Book and his partner hadn’t given the federal agents on the Eckhardt case time or room to object, but had arranged to meet officers from the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office at the Morgan property near Jean Lafitte.
The feds had followed because, thanks to Jack, they’d been handed the closest thing to a clue they’d had in the Eckhardt case for days. Perry doubted she and Della would be handed anything before daylight.
That was assuming Jack was being held at the Morgan place, and the search parties picked the right place in all that swampland to start.
It was also assuming those in charge didn’t decide Jack could wait, that Eckhardt was a priority. That first they needed to get to him.
“They’ll find him.” Della reached over and patted Perry’s hand, her fingers cool and smooth. “Book will find him. He knows Jack’s one of the good ones. He won’t leave him out there any more than he’d leave one of his men.”
Perry could only pray Della was right. “I still can’t believe what he did, charging out of here the minute we realized you were gone. I mean, I love what he did. I’m in awe of what he did. Losing you would be unbearable.” She sighed, drooped against the table. “But he’s only known us a few days. It just seems so…”
“Heroic?” Della supplied, a wise brow arched above her eyes, which shimmered a deep purple hue.