Behind Closed Doors

Chapter 23

It was torture to disentangle himself from her velvety warmth, but his back was throbbing where he had slammed it into the newel post, and he was just now starting to notice it, in a big way.

Raine murmured a sleepy protest. “What's the matter?”

“Sore back,” he said. “No big deal.”

She ran her hand across his shoulders. “Take a hot shower,” she suggested, stroking his spine. “It might loosen it up.”

He could think of fifty better ways to loosen up, but he didn't want her to think he was a total sex maniac. He reached back with a short wince and massaged it. “Don't tell anybody, but I'm a little old for stunts like the stairs tumble.”

“How old are you?”

“Thirty-six in about two weeks.”

She kissed his shoulder. “I'm only twenty-eight, you cradle robber, you.”

He leered at her. “Want to take a shower with me, little girl?”

She stretched luxuriously under the covers. “I can't face the cold. And I don't think I can move yet. My bones are liquefied.”

“That's not your bones that are liquid, sweetheart.”

The kiss he gave her could easily have segued into something hot and pounding and delicious, but he dragged himself away. They could always have more sex later. Lots of it. For the rest of their lives.

“Would you like me to call out for some food?” she asked.

His stomach rumbled eagerly at the idea. “Go for it.”

“Anything in particular?”

He gave her a goofy, foolishly happy grin. “I'm not fussy.”

The water pressure was better than he expected in a dive like this. He relaxed under the hot, pounding spray for a long time, and when he came out, she was asleep. He tiptoed around the room, trying not to wake her. He felt like he was floating. Wanted to laugh and cry at every little thought that passed through his mind. He pulled on his jeans and silently scooted the armchair up next to the head of the bed, so he could just sit there and stare, openmouthed, at how beautiful she was. Every tiny detail fascinated him. The faint, rosy flush that stained her cheek was the most heartbreakingly perfect thing he had ever laid eyes on. He could spend the rest of his life exploring her.

And he would. She might not know it yet, but she was never getting rid of him. He was sticking to her like glue.

She jerked awake when the phone rang. She gave him a sleepy, satiated smile as she reached for it. “Hmm? The... oh, yes. Thank you. How much? Ten ninety-eight. OK, thanks ... we'll be right down.”

“Food's here?” He yanked on his boots and sweater, shrugged on his jacket and shoved his SIG into his pants. “I'll go get it.” One kiss, to send him high and flying, and he set off down the dark path in a loose, easy lope. The rain had eased off, and the wet pine needles were springy beneath his feet. It smelled good. He was ravenous.

It wasn't sound that alerted him, because the guy was utterly silent. It was a weird rush of displaced air. A shiver on the back of his neck, like the sigh of a lover's breath—but cold, not warm.

He spun just in time to see a cannonball of darkness hurtling towards him. The glow from the curtained window of their cabin glinted across the dark surface of a long blade, stabbing for his gut.

He lunged back, parrying the stab with a chop of his arm, but the guy was in too close. The tip of the blade slashed down Seth's side, a thin, white-hot line. He spun, slammed his elbow into the guy's jaw, felt the jolt, the grunt. Jerked to the side just in time to take the guy's knee in his thigh instead of his balls, fucking ouch, but no time to feel it, no time to grab for the gun. He was dancing back to evade another slash, then another. Ducking back, parrying. Sliding in wet pine needles, going down backwards.

The attacker followed up his advantage and leaped, but Seth blocked his knife arm and grabbed his wrist. He slammed both booted feet up into the guy's stomach, lifted and flung. The guy somersaulted in the air and rolled smoothly back up onto his feet. Seth rolled back over his shoulder, sprang up and yanked out his gun. The guy's leg snapped out, quick as a whip, and kicked the gun right out of his hand.

The light behind him brightened as the porch light switched on. He hoped it would blind the guy and give him a split-second advantage, because he needed one, and fast.

“Seth? What's... oh my God!”

The killer launched himself with a menacing shout. Seth spun back sideways alongside him, seized his knife arm at the wrist. Wrenched it up, twisted it back, whipped it down. There was a loud snap. The guy let out a gurgling, agonized grunt. The knife dropped.

There was a small cinderblock structure adjoining the cabin, and Seth opted for the simple and handy expedient of wrenching up the guy's broken arm until he shrieked and bent over, and then slamming him into the cement blocks headfirst He hauled him back and gave him another one for good measure before he flung the guy down to the ground like the sack of shit that he was. He stared down at the twitching form, chest heaving, and started to shake with retroactive terror. Wow. That had been way too fucking close.

Raine darted towards him, her bare feet flashing over the muddy ground. “Seth, are you all right?”

His breathing was labored. He was pressing his hand against his side, and it was warm and sticky. He yanked up the sweater, glanced at it. No big deal. His sweater and jeans were slashed, and the cut was long and messy, but it looked relatively shallow.

He pushed Raine's hands away, blocking out her anxious questions. He couldn't even hear her, with the unthinkable thoughts pounding at the door of his mind. He would have welcomed another assassin. A whole pack of them, so they could keep him too busy to mink, to reason. To use his worthless brain for the first time in weeks and ask himself how the rack this guy had found them, with all the tricks he had pulled. All the lengths he had gone to. And right after he had confessed every goddamn secret he had been keeping to his archenemy's only heir.

He hooked his foot beneath the guy's carcass and flopped him onto his back. He leaned over with a hiss of pain and yanked the ski mask off. The top of the guy's head was a bloody mess, but his face was recognizable. Short dark hair, mid-thirties. Average, unnoticeable. Close-set, empty brown eyes, staring up. He put his finger to the guy's carotid artery. Nothing. Just as well, though it would have been interesting to question him. Not the Templeton Street guy. This one had been lighter, quicker. Far more deadly.

He straightened, trying not to wince at the sting in his side. He pulled Raine closer and made her look. “You know this guy?” he demanded.

She shook her head, her hands clamped over her mouth.

“How did he find us?” he asked.

She stared down at the cadaver, her eyes wide and blank. He slapped her hands down from her mouth, grabbed her shoulders and gave her a shake. “Answer me, Raine!”

Her lips moved, but no sound came out. She gasped in enough breath to finally voice the words, on one stuttering exhalation.

“D—d—don't... know!” She began to shake violently.

There would be no questioning her until she calmed down.

He retrieved his gun from the bushes and stuck it back into his pants. Raine was standing right where he'd left her, staring down at the hit man, oblivious to the rain beating down on her head and shoulders. She looked lost The corpse’s face was beaded with rain.

He ducked into the cabin to grab his gear, and took her by the arm. “Come on,” he said, pulling her down the path. Raine stumbled beside him like a zombie, her bare feet covered with mud.

He scanned the parking lot and counted the same number and make of cars as there had been when they arrived, with the addition of one black late model Saab sedan, the engine still warm. The bluish light of the TV still flickered from the window of the reception cabin. No faces at the window, no shots out of the dark. No sound, just the rustle of the rain. He unlocked the car, shoved Raine into it and pulled out onto the road, driving as fast as he dared.

His cyborg side was back, cold and effective. He could kill a man and leave the body lying in the mud, no problem. He could drag a shivering, weeping, half-naked woman barefoot over rocks and gravel without a qualm. The bright, shining sensation that had invaded his mind and soul, thanks to Raine, could now be observed from all sides with chilly detachment, like the bizarre, dangerous phenomenon that it was.

A silent half-hour later Rained teeth had stopped chattering. He decided that he had waited long enough.

“That wasn't supposed to happen, was it?” he asked.

“What?” Her voice was soft. Confused. All innocence.

“Me, surviving. Inconvenient, isn't it? Throws off the whole plan.”

“Seth, what are you talking about?”

He had to hand it to her. She was believable down to the last detail.

“Come on, Raine. There's nothing left to be gained by holding back. Tell me how your buddy tracked us down.”

“You can't think that I—” She stopped, shook her head. Tears glittered on her face, worthy of a highly trained actress.

“I'm clean. You're clean. The car's clean. We haven't used any credit cards. We're in the middle of nowhere, signed in with a fake ID. Sure, they would have found us eventually, but how did they find us so soon? Can you explain that to me, sweetheart?”

She shook her head. “Don't do this, Seth.”

“Take a shower, Seth,” he mocked, in a sing-song voice. “It'll loosen up your back. I'll just call out for some dinner. Don't you worry about a thing.”

“I just ordered cheeseburgers, fries and a soda from the diner,” she whispered.

He pondered that. “I should've thought it through,” he said. “You're Victor's long-lost darling, right? They tell me the guy's worth a hundred and fifty million or so. I can almost understand it, even if he did whack your daddy. Let's just let bygones by bygones, shall we? What's a little murder? Happens in the best of families.”

“Stop it!” she protested. “You saw what happened at my house! That was real, Seth!”

“Yeah, that does confuse things,” he admitted. “But a woman like you might have all kinds of enemies. Particularly if you make a habit of treating your lovers the way you treat me.”

She had the tears under control now, assuming they were ever real to begin with. “I never lied to you, Seth,” she said, in a stiff, dignified little voice. “Where are we going?” “Someplace where you can't cause any more damage.”

She flinched. “I would never do anything to hurt you.”

He allowed part of his mind to assess the possibility that she was telling him the truth. He shied away from the thought.

He wanted it to be the truth too badly. It was his weak spot, his Achilles’ heel. He had to overcompensate for it, even if it killed him.

The pattern taking shape, the one in which Raine sold him out and set him up to die, made perfect sense in the world where Jesse had been tortured and killed. It lined up just fine with a world where a mother could deliberately swallow so many pills that she just didn't wake up the next morning. That was the real world, where any horrible thing could happen. There were no rules at all. No limits to how horrible things could get.

He pressed his hand against his side, lightheaded. His sweater was getting soggy, and the slash throbbed and burned.

Raine saw the blood on his hand. “You're hurt!”

“No big deal. We're almost there.”

“Why didn't you tell me? Stop the car, so I can—”

“One more word, and I put you in the trunk.”

She stared with burning eyes at the rain pounding against the windshield. Heat poured from the vent, but it was fake heat, it couldn't touch her. She was lost on a glacier. She would never warm up. Pursued by unknown assassins, and the man she loved was convinced that she had set him up to die. Things couldn't get worse than this.

No, not true. If the man at the motel with the caved-in head had succeeded in killing Seth, that would have been worse. Infinitely worse. That would have been the end of the world.

And he'd come so close. She'd seen the blade flash down but she hadn't seen Seth's response, just a dark blur, a crunch, a thud, and that was that. Not like fight movies, where the eye followed every move as if it were a beautiful dance. There had been nothing beautiful about what she'd seen tonight. Just a brusque, lethal efficiency of movement.

There were a lot of things she didn't know about Seth Mackey.

He slowed and turned onto a steep gravel road. The sedan struggled and spun for a moment, but the tires finally gripped and soon they were bouncing along a narrow, rutted road.

The road dead-ended, the headlights of the car illuminating the porch of what appeared to be a large, ramshackle house. A light burned in the downstairs room off the porch. Seth killed the motor.

The porch door opened. A very large man was silhouetted against the light behind him. Seth got out of the car. “It's me,” he said.

Seth opened the passenger side and pulled Raine out, wrapping his fingers around her upper arm like a manacle.

“This isn't necessary” she hissed.

He ignored her, and dragged her towards the house. A muscular, hawk-nosed man with a short beard stared at her, stupefied as Seth pulled her through the doorway.

She blinked, taking in a swift blur of images. A big, smoky kitchen that seemed almost tropically warm. A kerosene lamp burning on the table. A card game was laid out, a coffeepot. Glasses and cups, a bottle of whisky. A sink full of dirty dishes. Two men sat at the table. The man with the beard closed the door and followed them in, leaning against the wall and folding massive arms over his barrel chest.

One of the men at the table was smoking a cigarette. He had the same hawk nose as the bearded man, and his big feet were propped up on the open door of the woodstove. There was a hole in the big toe of his sock, she noticed, before he pulled his feet down and stubbed out his cigarette. He was long and skinny, shaggy-haired, his lean face glinting with golden beard stubble. Green eyes, sharp and watchful.

The other man was clean-shaven and extremely hand- some, with a mane of tawny hair pulled back in a thick pony-tail. He had similar green eyes, with which he studied her body with undisguised interest.

The skinny guy with the hole in his sock broke the spell. “What's going on?” he demanded.

“I need a room I can lock from the outside, a padlock. A heater. And blankets.”

The three men looked at each other. Looked back at her.

“What the fuck do you think you're looking at?” Seth snarled.

The handsome long-haired guy jumped up. “The attic room ought to work. I'll go scrounge up a futon.”

“I'll get a padlock out of the shed,” the bearded man said.

The skinny one rose to his feet and reached for a cane. “I'll get some blankets.” He gave Seth a hard look as he limped by. “Then you and I are going to have a talk.”

“Whatever. Let me get her squared away first,” Seth said, pressing his hand against his side. He was paler than she had ever seen him.

The skinny guy's eyes widened. “Jesus, man, what did you do to yourself?”

“Later.”

They put her in the attic. There was a bustle of activity, which she could not follow. Someone dragged in a space heater and turned it on right next to her, but she didn't feel the heat. The man with the ponytail draped a blanket over her. The skinny guy was speaking to her, but she didn't hear his voice. He snapped his fingers in front of her face, looking worried, and said something to Seth. Seth shrugged.

The men filed out of the room, Seth last. He cast a hard look at her over his shoulder. She closed her eyes against it.

The door shut Clunk, rattle, and the padlock was engaged.

Connor popped the first aid kit open and pulled out a roll of gauze. “Get that sweater off,” he said. “Let me take a look.”

“It's no big deal, I told you. Give me some more of that whiskey.”

“Shut up and get the shirt off, bonehead. Some antibiotic ointment and some Band-Aids are not going to kill you.”

He dragged the thing over his head with a sigh. Davy pulled a dishcloth out of a drawer, ran hot water over it, and handed it to him.

He sponged the blood streaks off, wincing as Connor smeared antiseptic gel over the long, ugly slice and taped bandages over it. Sean tossed him a red flannel shirt, which he pulled on very slowly and carefully. He was too tired to bother buttoning it.

The three brothers plied him with whiskey and pried the whole tale out of him, bit by bit. By the time they were finished, Seth was so wiped out that even their long, speaking glances to each other didn't bug him anymore. The end of his story was greeted by silence, broken only by the crackle of the woodstove.

“OK “ he said, bracing himself. “Get it over with. This is the part where you guys tell me what an asshole I am. Go for it. I'm ready.”

“Nah,” Connor said. He put an oak log into the wood-stove, prodding it with a poker until it nested in the coals. “You got it wrong. This is the part where we calmly discuss our options.”

Seth gulped whiskey and wiped his mouth. “I told her everything, get it? Lazar's onto me. If we follow the pistol now, it'll be into a trap.”

“Based on the fact that the killer tracked you down tonight?”

Seth was startled by Davy's skeptical tone. “It's the only thing that makes sense.”

“Not necessarily,” Sean said. “Maybe you slipped up. You're not superhuman. Maybe there’s something you don't know.”

“There are three possibilities,” Connor said. “One, she never planted the chip at all, and told Lazar everything from

the beginning. Two, she planted it, Lazar discovered it and is onto the two of you. Three, she planted the chip, Lazar doesn't know, and the ski masks aren't Lazar's. I personally don't favor number one. Why would he attack her if she were collaborating with him? It doesn't jive with what I know of her personally, either.”

“What do you know about her personally?” Seth said bitterly.

Connor raised an eyebrow. “I enjoy the distinct advantage of not being in love with her, so trust me, my judgment is way better than yours. Why would she call a hit man to whack you right after you saved her life? Come on, Seth.”

Seth shook his head. “There was no other way that guy—”

“Shut up and listen for once,” Connor said curtly. “I don't like number two, either. Victor's not the type to show his hand by sending an incompetent goon to attack her. He's the type to rub his hands together and wait until you fall into his trap.”

“The second guy was not an incompetent goon,” Seth said. He touched his bandaged side with a grimace. “He almost got me.”

“Yeah, the second guy worries me,” Connor said. “Which brings us to number three. The ski masks are Novak's, not Lazar’s. We know that he wants her. And he'll go to any lengths to get what he wants.”

Seth buried his face in his hands. “She Is in on it,” he repeated stubbornly. “There's no other way the guy could have found us. And her boot had an X-Ray Specs beacon in it I sold that shit to Lazar.”

“So?” Davy said. “You dusted her stuff too, right? Maybe he just thinks that she belongs to him, like you do.”

“And he tagged her because he wanted to keep an eye on her, like you did,” Sean added. '“Cause he's a paranoid control freak.”

“Like you are,” Connor and Davy finished in unison. They grinned and gave each other a high five.

Seth grunted. “Don't expect me to have a sense of humor tonight.”

“You don't have a sense of humor at all,” Sean observed. “Why won't you even consider the possibility that she's not lying to you?”

Whiskey and exhaustion let the truth just fall out of him. “I can't afford to consider it. I want it too much.”

“Ah. So what you're saying is, you're chickenshit,” Sean said.

Seth was too tired and depressed to react. “Better to err on the side of being a suspicious bastard. I'll live longer”

“Yeah, maybe. But your life won't be worth a damn.”

Seth didn't even bother to glare at him. “It doesn't matter,” he said dully. “Whether she did, whether she didn't, she stays in that room until this is over. I'm following the gun alone. I accept the consequences of what I've done, but that doesn't mean you guys have to.”

Davy sloshed some more whiskey into his glass. “Don't be a melodramatic asshole, Mackey. It's not up to you what we decide to do.”

Seth stared down into the deep amber color of the liquor. “You guys don't have to risk your lives because of some misplaced loyalty to Jesse. He's gone. He doesn't need you anymore.”

“No, but you do,” Connor said. He leaned over and poked Seth in the shoulder. “It's not just for Jesse. It's for you. Don't ask me why. You're a pain in the ass, and we still need to have that talk about your social skills, but there it is. I'm in this for you, buddy.”

Seth choked on the liquor he was swallowing. Coughing to clear his burning throat made his bandaged side sting like hell. “Hey, I appreciate the sentiment, but at this point, I don't even care if it's a trap, see? I just want to end it. Fold my hand and get out of the game. I can't take the responsibility, and I don't want your help.”

“Tough shit,” Davy said. “Count me in,” Sean piped up.

“Me, too,” Connor said, lifting his glass with a grin.

Davy scowled at him. “Not you, pal. You're still hobbling around on a cane. You're not going anywhere. You get guard duty.”

“Like hell.”

“No,” Davy said, in a big brother voice. “I'll tie you down.”

“Let's play a hand of poker on it,” Connor wheedled.

“Yeah, and you'll cheat, you slick bastard. Non-negotiable, so just forget it...”

The conversation degenerated quickly into an energetic fraternal squabble. Seth tuned out the familiar cadences and stared into the fire. The fire of the whiskey warmed him, fuzzing his brain around the edges, and he struggled to follow his own train of thought. Only an idiot with a death wish would follow a transmitter to an unknown destination, to face an unknown number of adversaries with unknown resources. Truth was, he had never meant to involve the McClouds in the actual takedown. He had always intended for that phase to be his own private party.

He broke into the middle of the argument, which had gotten to the shouting stage. “Let me finish this my own way, guys. That way, if it goes to shit, they can't link me to you.”

His words reverberated in the sudden stillness.

“Yeah, right” Connor said slowly. “And what are we supposed to do with Blondie? Keep her in the attic like Rapunzel?”

“Oh, God.” Seth closed his eyes and rubbed them. “I don't have the faintest idea. What a fuck-up. God. I'm sorry, guys.”

The fire crackled and spat for a few minutes. “I know why you brought her here,” Connor said quietly. “And you did the right thing.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. You brought her here to keep her safe.”

Seth shook his head. It was not a negation. “I'm an idiot.”

“You aren't the first, and you won't be the last,” Davy said.

“I were you, I'd go up to the attic and spend some quality time with your lady,” Connor said. “She's in a bad way. And you could use some rest yourself. You look like shit. We've got the Cherokee gassed up and loaded and ready to roll. The Specs are set up and keyed to the Corazon transmitter. The three of us will take turns watching tonight. If it starts to move, we'll call you. We can leave on a minute's notice.”

“Yeah. Chill,” Sean urged. “We need you fresh and snappy when it starts to move. Here, I made a sandwich. Take this on up to her.”

“It won't be long,” Connor said. “Things are starting to move.”

“The circle is getting smaller,” Seth said.

The McClouds looked at him. “Huh?” Sean said.

Seth shrugged. “Just something Jesse said to me in a dream,” he mumbled. He looked around himself. Three pairs of similar green eyes regarded him with varying combinations of worry and annoyance.

He hadn't seen that look on anybody's face since Jesse's death. He hadn't thought he would ever see it again.

He grabbed the whiskey bottle and raised it, in a silent salute to brotherhood He grabbed Raine's sandwich and headed up the stairs.