Allison Brennan - Sudden Death

Scout had been drunk. His reaction time may have been slow, but his instincts always stayed sharp. Like Jack, he wouldn’t walk into a dark house, even his own, without caution. Pausing. Listening for a breath, a heartbeat. Sensing movement, heat, the faint expel of air from an enemy’s lungs. Sniffing for adrenaline, cologne, the smell of something different.

Jack closed his eyes and used his other senses to try and figure out what had bothered him earlier in the day.

The stench of death that Jack had been ignoring came rushing in. Death and fear. He walked through the small house. If he were a killer, he would have secured the building, made sure no one was inside.

Ten minutes later, Jack was frustrated. He went back to the kitchen and stared at the dried pool of blood on the floor. “Dammit, Scout. Who did this?”

He pictured Scout lying on the floor. He had avoided looking at his friend’s dead body as much as possible. But now he couldn’t get it out of his mind.

And suddenly he knew.

Scout hadn’t been wearing his dog tags. He always wore them, even in the shower. Or, Jack should say, it. The second tag had been torn off on Scout’s last mission when he’d broken his back and couldn’t walk out. He was left for three hours before his team could return to him. “I only have two lives, Jack. I used up one.”

To verify that Jack wasn’t imagining it, he went to Scout’s bedroom and bathroom and shined his light around on the off chance Scout had taken the chain off and forgotten it. Nothing.

Jack left the way he’d come in, taking care not to disturb anything. He didn’t know what this meant, but he hoped that Dillon’s feds could use the information.

He heard a car drive up. Another. By the sound, police cruisers. Shit. He couldn’t slip through the backyard, too much light from the streetlamps, and if he were seen it would make him look guilty of something. He’d just talk his way out of it. As long as Art Perez wasn’t around, Jack was confident he could be leaving for McAllen to pick up the feds in the next five minutes.

He walked around the side of the house, hands in view.

Art Perez stood there, in civilian clothes, a cat-ate-the-canary grin on his face.

“I knew you’d show up sooner or later.”

Megan had grown frustrated thirty minutes ago when their ride was a no-show. It was after midnight, she was tired, hungry, and crabby, and stuck in a small, empty airport thirty miles from their destination.

“Have you tried him again?” she asked Hans. Hans had left a message, told the ride where they would be waiting.

“Yes.”

“Are you sure he’s coming?”

“Yes. Dillon talked to him only a couple hours ago.” But even saintly Hans Vigo was beginning to sound irritated.

Thunder rolled through the sky, the clouds were thick with the threat of a downpour, though there was no rain yet. The humidity was enough to make Megan miss the dry heat of Sacramento.

The sound of the Jeep came before they saw it.

The driver pulled near them, but didn’t get out. He was a Hispanic male about forty years old with shortcropped hair and wearing a priest collar. “Your friend’s brother is a priest?” she asked.

Hans shook his head. Megan didn’t like the unknown situation, and had her hand on her gun.

“Dr. Vigo?” the driver asked. “Agent Elliott?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Father Francis Cardenas. Jack Kincaid sent me for you. I’m sorry I’m late. There’s been a situation. Jack’s in jail, and we have to get him out or he’ll be dead by morning.”

He was strapped to a cot. Naked. His eyes burned and he couldn’t see. The room was too bright, too bright, too much light, God help me help me help me die.

The door opened and he began to shake. Not from cold, the room was too hot, the lights too bright, to be cold. The fear. The pain. No, no no no no no no …

No words, no explanation, and the needle went in, at the back of his neck, and every limb screamed in pain, as if he’d been zapped by a lightning bolt. There were no tears, no voice to the agony that rippled through his body, wave after wave after wave …

They’d left him. They hated him and left him. Not to die, they didn’t want to give him anything, they wanted him to suffer. Maybe he was dead. Maybe this was Hell. It couldn’t be that he was alive.

Another needle and the pain put him over the edge….

“Ethan!”

He blinked. Every finger in both hands was on fire. He stared at them in the dim light of the cheap hotel room they’d rented somewhere in New Mexico. New Mexico? He didn’t remember. Not for certain … his fingers weren’t on fire. They were there. Right there. He moved them, watched them glide right and left and right and left …

“Ethan, it’s me.”

The female voice had a panicked sound.

“Ethan, you’re okay. I’m right here. You’re okay.”

He looked at her and didn’t recognize her. Why was this woman in his bed? Another trick? Another perverse, sadistic torment? Let him glimpse a goddess, then snatch her away?

He reached out to touch her face. She didn’t flinch or disappear. He remembered her. Familiar. Pain and love. Hot and cold. She hated him. Loved him.

“They left me,” Ethan croaked.

“I know, baby. I know.”

Ethan’s nightmares-memories? — now occurred nightly. Karin didn’t know what that meant, but it wasn’t good. His slips were more frequent, like going into the woods and burying himself in dirt. But there was nothing she could do about that now. And when he was like this, Ethan was more forthcoming and patient with her training. Karin was almost there. After last night … she resisted the urge to gloat.

Instead, she hugged Ethan close, his head to her breast. The tension started to leave his body. He began to shake violently, then fell back into a deep sleep so suddenly, became so still, that for a moment she thought he’d died.

She felt his pulse. Strong. She stared at Ethan as he slept, this time without the memories, the real nightmares that had turned him into … into what?

A killer like you?

She swallowed. She had good reasons for what she needed to do. Karin always had good reasons.

You turned him into a killer. Without you, he would be locked up in a padded room, or maybe someone could have helped him. What do you think of that? That you turned this pathetic, tortured man into a sadistic killer?

What was sadistic about killing those who hurt others? If it weren’t for those soldiers, who were supposed to protect the innocent, who were there to make sure no harm came to Ethan, he would never have been a hostage and tortured for months.

It’s not your fight. You’re using him. You’re killing him.

Perhaps she was, but she didn’t start it. And Ethan wanted to die, anyway. He’d tried it enough times.

She was confident in the rightness of Ethan’s cause. When she’d killed before, it was for the justice of others. Never herself. When General Hackett died, she would finally be able to kill for herself.

It would be a righteous kill.

Megan walked into the Hidalgo Police Department with Father Francis Cardenas while Hans worked on getting a warrant from the presiding U.S. attorney to remand Jack Kincaid into their custody if she couldn’t sweet talk the chief of police into releasing him. Because it was so late, Megan wasn’t holding her breath on either count. But the priest was certain that Kincaid was in grave danger and Megan couldn’t not at least try and figure out what was going on and see if she could fix it.

She felt out of her element in the border town, blond hair, green eyes, and boobs, which the desk sergeant stared at instead of the badge that was clipped to her belt. She grabbed her badge and put it directly in his line of sight. “Supervisory Special Agent Megan Elliott, Federal Bureau of Investigation. I’m here to speak to a witness in a homicide I heard you have under arrest.”