It had nearly gotten her killed. He should have been sharper, should have prevented the attack at the cemetery. Instead now he was freezing his ass off in the woods, waiting for the guy to come back. As much as Donovan needed whatever Wally had given Jessie, others needed to keep him from getting it. Which meant eliminating the only person who knew what it was—Jessie Shikovski.
Jess Maulier, he corrected himself. She’d taken her mother’s maiden name when they left Wally, divesting herself of anything to do with her father. As much as he disliked her for it, that anonymity had probably saved her life. He doubted anyone outside of the Omega Group had known she existed until she showed up for the funeral.
That safety net was gone now, and they’d be coming for her.
He didn’t have long to wait. Even with the sleet changing to soft snow, icy leaves still crunched beneath the man’s feet as he crept toward the back of Wally’s house. Donovan hunkered lower in the dense tangle of sumac and wild raspberry that concealed him and slipped the night-vision goggles on. A single splotchy yellow blob of body heat moved toward him through the trees, walking slowly without the aid of a flashlight. Just one man. Good.
As he’d expected, the man headed toward the dark back door of the house, a door that Donovan knew led to a mudroom. Wally had an intricate alarm system, but Jessie wouldn’t know about it, much less know how to arm it. The door’s simple dead bolt wouldn’t stop anyone determined to get in.
Donovan didn’t intend to let the man get that far, and with any luck, he’d force him to give up the information Wally had been unable to deliver. He set the bulky night-vision goggles aside and waited, tense, as the figure came closer. The man was dressed in dark clothing and a ski mask, appearing hardly more than a moving shadow in the dark woods. He came close enough to the dry tangle of branches for Donovan to see the puffed breaths escaping the ski mask, mingling with the first snowflakes. Donovan noted the gloved hands, empty, with no weapon ready, and smiled grimly.
The man moved past him, heedless of what he’d just passed in the thicket. Three feet. Five.
Donovan lunged. Prickly branches tore at his jacket but he barely noticed as he barreled into the man’s back, knocking him down. With one knee he pinned the man’s thigh as he wrapped his arm around the guy’s neck and squeezed.
The man’s arms flailed, then braced against the ground as he heaved and twisted, reaching for something. Donovan flattened himself into the guy’s back just as one arm flashed backward. The sharp sting of a blade grazed his hip, slicing through chaps and jeans to open a line in his skin.
“Son of a bitch,” he growled and squeezed harder. Guttural sounds issued from the ski mask as the man stabbed ineffectually behind himself. The man outweighed him by a good thirty pounds, all of it apparently muscle. He bucked and kicked, doing his best to loosen Donovan’s grip as he slipped closer to unconsciousness. His struggles had nearly ceased when one final heave banged Donovan aside, knocking his head against a sharp rock, stunning him.
It was only a moment. Enough that the man was suddenly on his feet, turning to fight. Donovan shot upward, reaching blindly for the hand holding the knife as he aimed his head at the man’s chin. The impact was dizzying and fast. Donovan’s still-stunned mind knew only to keep the knife away from his own body, forcing the hand downward as they fell again, grunting and panting and rolling.
Donovan’s head was still spinning when he realized the fight had gone out of his opponent. He raised himself, becoming gradually aware that the man’s rapid breaths had become shallow as his head rolled slowly from side to side.
It was too dark to see the problem. He couldn’t have fallen on the knife; he’d forced the man’s hand down and back, near their legs, away from vital organs. His hands followed his thoughts, feeling beside them in the thin layer of snow. His fingertips touched something thin and hard—the knife.
Soft puffs of steam came from the mouth beneath the ski mask. They were fainter than they’d been seconds before. Fainter than they should be.
“Shit.” Slipping one hand from his glove, he felt frantically along the man’s leg. The thigh was wet, soaked with warm liquid. His fingers found the tear in the jeans and felt the slight spurt from the femoral artery.
Panic swelled inside his chest as he reached beneath his jacket, fumbling at his belt. “Don’t you die on me, damn it,” he muttered, whipping the belt off and cinching it around the man’s thigh. He pulled it tight until the tiny spurt of blood stopped.
He crawled to the man’s head, pulled the ski mask off, and slapped at the pale cheeks beneath. “Come on, damn it. Hang on.” The man’s head tilted gently to the side, sightless eyes staring into the falling snow. He was gone.