He struggled not to smile. "That's an excellent idea."
"Great! Come on, girl. Let's find us a missing puppy."
I passed the guy and got ten paces before I heard the whir of his jacket being unzipped. I turned so quickly he jumped.
"Oooh," I said. "You might want to leave that zipped up. The deer ticks are bad this time of year, and we've had a few cases of Lyme disease."
He looked at my undone jacket.
"I'm wearing spray."
"So am I."
There is no such thing as anti-tick spray, but I grinned and said, "Carry on, then."
I turned back and tugged out my gun. I waited for the telltale whisper of him starting to unholster his weapon then wheeled.
He stared at the Glock pointing at his chest.
When his hand moved under his jacket, I barked, "Stop!" but he kept drawing his weapon. As soon as I saw the butt, I fired.
The shot hit him in the right shoulder and he staggered back, releasing his grip on the gun. I lunged, dropping Scout's lead as I grabbed his right arm and twisted it. I threw him down. I kicked his gun aside.
"On your stomach!" I said. "Hands behind your back!"
"You shot me," he said, gasping in pain. "You fucking--"
"On your stomach!"
I rammed my foot into the small of his back, knocking him into position. Scout jumped on his back, growling. I ordered her off, which she did, seemingly with reluctance.
"Hands behind your back!" I said.
"What are you? A fucking cop?"
I grabbed his right arm and pinned it against his back. He yowled but stopped struggling. I patted him down. There was a switchblade in his pocket. I pulled that out. Then I found a zip tie in his jacket pocket.
"You bring your own handcuffs?" I said. "Now that is convenient."
He resisted having his hands cuffed behind his back, but a slam to his injured shoulder stopped that. I got the zip tie on his wrists and then used Scout's leash to bind his legs. Once he was secured, I did another pat-down search, making sure I hadn't missed any weapons. Finally I removed his wallet.
He had a New York State driver's license. A decent fake. He had a credit card in the same name--Douglas Leeds--but the cash-stuffed wallet told me he preferred to pay that way.
"Why were you following me?" I asked.
Silence.
I did another pat down, as thorough as possible now. When something crinkled in his windbreaker, I realized he had an extra pocket sewn in the liner. Inside was a folded sheet of paper.
I pulled the paper out and opened it. It was a computer printout with two photos on it. One was a slightly blurry photo of me in disguise at the bar in Newport. The other was an equally crappy photo of me leading a group of rock climbers near the lodge--likely something he found online. Below that was my name, address, date of birth, and information about the lodge.
"Are we going to talk about this?" I said, shoving the paper down beside his face.
He turned his stony gaze to mine. "No."
"All right then."
I took off my shoe and then my sock, and I stuffed the sock into his mouth. He fought then, teeth gritted against the pain in his shoulder. But I managed to get it in without being bitten.
When I started to walk away, he decided he was feeling chatty. At least, that seemed to be what he was trying to tell me, grunting and wriggling madly as I abandoned him to the bunnies and squirrels.
As I turned the last corner near the lodge, I was confronted by yet another armed killer on a mission to track me down.
"Hey," I said to Jack. "Did you start worrying that a hired gun had attacked me in the forest?"
He rolled his eyes and jerked his chin back toward the lodge. "Emma's baking. Should be ready."
"Great, but I'm going to suggest you get your cinnamon roll to go. I shouldn't leave that guy bleeding in the forest."
"Guy?"
"The hired gun."
Jack stared at me. "You serious?"
"Also, I'd like my sock back." I gestured down at my bare leg. "I just hope he hasn't chewed any holes in it."
"Fuck."
"Agreed. All these times when I mocked you for telling me to take extra precautions on my jog and now you get to say 'I told you so' forever."
I handed him the page I'd taken from my would-be assassin. As he read it, his expression changed. If I was the guy in the woods, I'd start gnawing my arm off.
Jack folded the paper, carefully and deliberately, running his nails along the edges before he looked up.
"If I'd had any idea--" he began.
"--that Drew Aldrich's killer would presumably send someone here after me? It's a completely unforeseeable turn of events, Jack."
His grim look said it should have been foreseeable. He jerked his chin toward the road. "Let's go."
"You aren't wearing a disguise," I said.
"Don't need it."
I could have gotten my would-be attacker to talk without Jack's help. No matter how inclined a guy might be to discredit a woman's potential threat, it's possible to beat the sexism out of him. But I didn't need to do that when I had a partner who was a lot better at getting reluctant people to talk.
Bringing back male reinforcements did not bolster my attacker's opinion of me. He lifted his head as we approached, saw Jack, and managed a snort, as if to say "Figures."
Jack walked over, gun at his side. With his free hand, he grabbed the guy by the hair and lifted him as he crouched to study his face. Then he dropped him and shot him in the other shoulder. The guy let out a strangled squeal through the sock gag and the stink of urine wafted over.
"He didn't piss himself when I shot him," I said.
"Saw yours coming. Gotta be faster."
The guy writhed on the ground. When Jack bent again, he tried shimmying backward.
"Stop moving or I shoot you between the shoulders."
The man stopped. Jack hunkered down in front of him, gun dangling so casually it might have been a half-empty beer bottle.
"I need to talk to you. I'm going to take that sock out. You yell, scream, holler? I shoot you. You don't answer my questions, I shoot you. Basically? You piss me off, I shoot you. Understood?"
The guy nodded.
Jack pulled out the sock gag, tossed it aside, and looked up at me. "What're we calling him?"
"His fake ID says Douglas. Dougie works for me."
Dougie followed our exchange, gaze slightly narrowed, as if not sure whether to be offended by my casual tone or take it as a sign that the situation wasn't as dire as it seemed. He opted for number two. He asked Jack, "You a cop, too?"
Jack looked at me.
"My throw-down tipped him off," I said. "Apparently, he didn't know his assigned target was a former law-enforcement officer."
"Fucking idiot," Jack muttered.
"He's not too bright," I said. "Did I tell you how he got me into the woods? He convinced me to help him find his lost dog."
Jack snorted. "How old does she look to you? Twelve?"
Dougie's eyes narrowed as he looked up at me. "She tricked me. Fucking bitch--"
Jack shot him in the leg. When he screeched, Jack grabbed his hair and slammed his face into the ground.
"Shut the fuck up." He lifted Dougie's head as blood surged from the man's broken nose. "Didn't I warn you not to piss me off? Calling her names is going to piss me off."
"You crazy . . ."
Dougie trailed off, watching Jack's emotionless face. He seemed to decide that crazy wasn't quite the word he wanted. He swallowed hard and dropped his gaze.
"What's the job?" Jack asked.
Dougie was having trouble focusing. "Wh-what?"
"The job. This." He shook open the page with my information. "What were you supposed to do?"
"Just . . . uh, find her. Get a look and see if she was the woman in the other photo. Which, obviously she's not, so I'll say there was a mistake and--"
"Stop babbling."
His teeth clicked shut.
"And if she was this woman in the photo?" Jack said. "What were you supposed to do?"
"Tell the guy who hired me. That's it."
"So you were only supposed to confirm whether Nadia Stafford was the woman in the photo. Which required a gun, handcuffs, and fake ID."
The man decided not to answer, instead shifting and wincing, trying to find a less painful position.
"Who hired you to check her out?"
"I don't know. That's not how I work. I have this other guy, like an agent, who takes the, uh, job requests."
"A middleman? Who?"
"He's just a guy. It's not like you can look him up in the Yellow Pages. Hell, even I don't know his--"
"--his real name. Yeah, I know. I'm asking what he goes by."
Dougie eyed Jack. I could see the wheels turning, hoping this was just idle curiosity. Knowing if it wasn't, that meant Jack might recognize the middleman's nom de guerre, which would mean Jack wasn't just some petty criminal I'd brought along for backup. One should hope the guy had figured that out by now.
"He goes by Roland. All I have is a phone number and even that changes--"
"Roland? Out of Pittsburgh?"
Sweat rolled down Dougie's cheek. "Maybe. I only know it's a Pennsylvania area code."
Jack turned to me. "I know him. Runs a pack of lowlifes and losers. Third-rate pros. Like this dumb fuck. Ask Evelyn. She'll know more."
Jack wasn't explaining this for me--this was for Dougie. It took him a minute to piece together that Jack knew his middleman, and he knew Evelyn. Pretty much everyone in the business knows Evelyn's name. She makes sure of that. All that added up to one conclusion--Dougie was dealing with a fellow hitman. And not some "third-rate pro." He looked at Jack as he tried to figure out who he was. Jack might be a legend in the business, but he wasn't nearly as interested in getting his name out as Evelyn.
"Let's back up," Jack said. "I asked what the job was. I already know, but I want to hear you say it. And if you don't?" Jack didn't raise the gun or threaten. He just shrugged.
"It was a hit," Dougie said. "The job was to hunt down this Nadia Stafford chick, and if she was the woman in the other picture, then I was supposed to kill her."
"Why?"
"It's complicated."
"We have time. And it'll make me happy."
Dougie wanted to make Jack happy. His life depended on it. He told his story--or as much of it as he knew.
Aldrich thought he'd recognized me in Newport. Yet he'd been uncertain so he'd snapped a shot with his cell phone, then called "this guy." That was all Dougie knew--Aldrich called "this guy." Aldrich was freaked out because he thought the woman in the pictures was from his past. Someone who could ruin his present. "This guy" then contacted Roland to hire a hitman to kill Nadia Stafford, if she was the same woman.
"Kill me and then what?" I asked. "Make me disappear?"
"The client offered extra if I could make it seem like a suicide. Otherwise you had to disappear." He looked around the woods. "Which would have been easy out here. I could have done the suicide part, too, if I'd known you had a gun."
"Real fucking tragedy," Jack muttered.
The guy didn't have the sense to look abashed. He just shifted again, struggling against the pain.
"Look, we're on the same team," Dougie said. "Clearly Roland had no idea the target was your girl. But now it's all been straightened out and the job is over. I'll drop it. As a professional courtesy."
"Big of you."
Jack hunkered down again, meeting Dougie's gaze. Sweat streamed down the man's face now as he audibly swallowed.
"What else you got?" Jack asked.
Dougie told him everything else. It wasn't much, but his life was on the line. He gave his name as Mark Lewiston, from Cleveland, along with some other personal information that may or may not have been true. When he was done, Jack turned to me.
"Nadia? Take the dog. Start heading back."
Scout had been sitting beside me, growing impatient, and was happy now to be moving again. As we walked away, I glanced back. Jack noticed me looking. He tensed, a muscle in his cheek twitching. He didn't want me watching him kill a man. It didn't matter if that was his job, or if we both knew it had to be done.
I turned away. The shot fired. I kept walking.
CHAPTER 19
A minute later, I heard Jack behind me. He didn't catch up, even when I slowed. Finally, I glanced over my shoulder. He was maybe twenty feet away. He picked up his pace and was beside me in a few seconds.
"I'll clean it up," he said.
"I'll help--"
"Don't need to. My mess."
"I'm going to help you, Jack."
He gave me a sidelong glance. Seeing if I was okay with what just happened. I could say I was, but then it would seem as if his actions were indeed in question. They weren't. When you kill people for a living, you accept the risk that this is how it will turn out.
"I'll load tools into the truck while you go in for breakfast," I said. "We should join the guests, too. It'll look strange if we take off again too soon."
"Yeah."
More quiet walking. I glanced over. Jack was facing forward, muscles tight, gaze distant.
"Hey," I said.
I brushed my hand against his. When he didn't tense or pull away, I hooked my index finger around his and gave a gentle squeeze. I started to let go, but he held my hand there, fingers locked. We walked like that for another minute before he said, "I fucked up."
"I hope you don't mean about shooting that asshole. There's no way we could take the chance he'd come back--after both of us this time."
"Mean him coming after you. My mess."
As his anger surged, his hand clenched mine, reflexively. When he realized, he loosened his hold, but didn't let go.
He looked over at me. "You don't care, do you?"
"About what?"
"That I almost got you killed. Biggest fucking error in judgment since--" He inhaled and shook his head. "I took you to that bar. My idea. We thought he made you. You were worried. I said it didn't matter. I fucked up."
"There was no way to expect Aldrich would recognize me--in disguise--after twenty years. No reason to panic when it seemed as if he did. Neither of us could have foreseen that he'd deal with it by hiring someone to kill me. We know, better than anyone, that it's entirely possible to hire someone to fix problems that way. Yet we never saw it coming because it makes absolutely no sense."
"Could have killed you."
"And that's never been a risk before?"
He made a noise in his throat.
"It's a chance I take every time I accept a job. I didn't get killed today, Jack. I didn't come close. That wasn't dumb luck. I'm careful. Damned careful."
"I know."
"Then you know that however bad you feel about this, I was never in any real danger."
He had nothing to say to that.
Jack still had my hand when we got to the lodge. I don't think either of us realized, until Emma came off the porch to greet us and stopped in her tracks.
We broke contact fast.
"Did we miss breakfast?" I called.
She shook her head and looked from me to Jack. He murmured, "Fuck," under his breath.
"You've got time to wash up before you eat," she said. "Not much, though, so you'd better step to it."
She stayed at the bottom of the steps, drying her hands on a dish towel. As we reached her, she said, "John?"
"Hmmm?" Jack said.
"Can I have a word?"
"Sure."
"I'll be in the kitchen," Emma said. She glanced at me, too quickly for me to read her expression, and then she headed up and inside.
"Fuck," Jack muttered as the door closed behind her. "Feel like I'm sixteen. Got caught sneaking you out for the night."
"Which isn't like Emma at all. Hell, she practically shoves me at every guy who looks my way."
He shrugged. "Differe
nt."
"I'm sure she's long past believing we're actually related."
"Not that. Age difference."
"I doubt it," I said. "But I'll talk to her."
"Nah. I will."
"You don't have to--"
"Got it," he said and went into the house before I could argue.
Jack came out as I finished loading body-dump supplies into my old pickup. He was carrying a picnic basket and a thermos.
"Either you totally charmed her," I said, "or we aren't allowed to dine with civilized folks."
"Wasn't about that."
"No?"
He waited for me to accompany him down to the dock. I turned on the heater in the gazebo as he set up breakfast inside.
"Emma heard the news about Aldrich."
"His suicide?"
"Yeah. Said she was going to tell you and I offered to do it."
"That saves me from finding the right look of shock. Thank you." I poured coffee as he put out the plates.
"Emma said the papers are reporting that the suicide note was a confession. About Amy."
"Which is good on all counts. He's dead and she gets justice."
"And you? Your justice? How're you doing with that?"
"I think it still hasn't entirely sunk in. It feels like it happened to someone else." I lifted my hands. "Not that I'm claiming it did. I know what happened to me. It's just not . . . sinking in."
"You gonna talk to someone?"
"A therapist, you mean?" I shrugged. "Probably not. I had that after Amy died and after I shot Wayne Franco. I know it works for people, but I can't talk to strangers. Which sounds utterly ridiculous to anyone who knows me."
"It's different. Personal." He snagged my gaze. "You don't do personal."
I'm sure that if I did talk to a shrink, she'd tell me that my hyper-friendliness was a defense mechanism. If I'm open and extroverted, no one will notice that I don't really say anything about myself. In my own way, I carry a Do Not Trespass sign as big as Jack's. I'm just better at disguising it.
"Speaking of dealing with it, I still want to read that journal and see if I can give other families closure. But the first order of business is to track down this Roland guy before he realizes his pro is dead and sends a backup." I paused. "I believe we've been in this situation before. Pretty soon middlemen are going to stop sending their guys here. Eastern Ontario: the Bermuda Triangle for professional killers."
Jack snorted.
"So we need to find Roland and get a lead on the client, preferably without telling Roland he's lost a hitman. As much as I hate to cut out on the Waldens again, I think we're off to Pennsylvania."