Hot Contract (17 page)

Keegan wanted Jen in his life, for the rest
of his life.

“Stay away from me—hey!” She waved a hand at
a big paramedic. “Over here. Please let me ride with you.”

The paramedic detoured in their direction.
“Only room for three and equipment. Hang with your boyfriend.” He
pantomimed a phone. “I’ll call.”

Dust exploded into the air, a whirlwind of
fine black pumice. The paramedic ran for the still open hatch and
slid it shut behind him. There was a small window built into the
door.

Jen bolted for it. “I have to get down to
Hilo!” she shouted.

The roar of the chopper built into a booming
whine and disappeared over the horizon.

Keegan was silent for several long moments,
just standing there all hot and frustrated. Fear of losing Jen put
an edge on the hell down in his stomach. He finally said, “Kualani
wasn’t a hero.”

“He tried to save me.”

“He stripped away your security and hung your
ass out to dry. If Fallon hadn’t tracked him, you’d be fucking
dead.”

“What the hell do you mean I’m breaking the
law?” Corlis yelled.

Keegan grabbed Jen before she could draw
attention to them and pulled her off behind the cars at the far end
of the parking lot. “Something’s going down,” he said, right up
against her ear.

Despite being confined to a stretcher, Kate
was clearly in charge. “You!” she shouted, pointing to the nearest
cop. “Find the others. And you,” she snarled down at the EMT trying
to fix her hand, “Stop that!”

The man refused to move. “Are you in pain?”
he asked. “We can—Mrs. Kualani! You’ve been injured—”

Kate shoved him back and swung her legs out
over the edge of the gurney. “I want results,” she told the police.
“I want my niece and her bodyguard, right here, right now—do not
disappoint me, gentlemen.”

A brawny, Makena-like cop pushed Fallon
through the crowd. “Aunt Kate?”

Keegan swore silently, hands clenched on
Jen’s arm, holding her in place so she didn’t do something stupid
like run out to safety when it was damned obvious the cops were in
collusion.

“We found this guy checking out the heiau.
What do you want us to do?”

He shoved Fallon at the nearest car. With his
arms secured behind him, Fallon’s reaction time was off. He
stumbled and fell hard.

Corlis whitened. “Get those things off—he's
got a phobia.”

Kate dropped to the ground, her caftan
billowing out around her. The mirrors sewn to her collar blazed
like miniature suns. “No! They are criminals, treat them as
such.”

Corlis shot her a disgusted look. “We’re not
breaking the law. I have a concealed weapons permit.”

“You shot me! You are the one—no!” Kate
staggered, hand to her shoulder, and turned on the man behind her.
He put the syringe away. “What have you done? I don’t need drugs.
My will is pure—”

She collapsed to her knees, and they loaded
her back on the gurney, this time strapping her in place. The
ambulance backed up, and the doors swung open to reveal the
man-sized kid who had threatened Keegan at the luau already on
board.

“Strong painkiller,” said the first
paramedic. “First time it’s caused megalomania. Hallucinating,
yeah?”

Kate’s absence left a power void. The
Kualani-like cops were in the minority. Unless Kate had suborned
the entire department, Fallon and Corlis were safe.

“I told you to get the restraints off! We’re
not the bad guys here. No, I’m not going to calm down. You’re
treating my partner like a fucking criminal—”

One of the black-haired cops pulled a set of
cuffs and moved on Corlis. “You have the right to remain silent,”
he began. “If you choose to give up that right, anything you say
can and will be—”

Keegan dragged Jen after him, swearing under
his breath and moving fast. She kept trying to stand, so he put his
hand on her head to keep her bent over. Down, he gestured. Stay
down.

The bushes turned into forest and pressed
right up against the back perimeter wall. Jen stumbled through the
ohelo scrub, holding her ruffles all bunched up around her thighs.
Keegan eased her down into a shallow alcove formed by some tumbled
blocks, and squeezed in beside her. She was covered in blood, some
of it already starting to flake. Her dress was stiff, and her hands
didn’t want to work. She had to get down to Hilo. She had to be
there when Mac came out of surgery. She wanted to rub her face and
eyes, but she couldn’t let go of the dress, bloody hands locked to
the stiffened fabric.

Keegan gave her a sideways look, but didn’t
try to touch her. Jen was abruptly aware of her legs still kicking
in the dirt. Sunlight drifted through the silvery ohia trees.

She bit her lip, eyes closed.

Hi Jen.

Run away with me.

Run away with you? Are you crazy?

Graduation.

The biggest party in the world, she’d been
sure of it. All white roses and hothouse calla lilies, and little
quail eggs stuffed with beluga caviar, because out of all the foods
she liked her father knew she liked quail eggs the best.

Makena had found her at the top of the
presentation staircase. He was her favorite cousin and the one she
saw the least. He said once he completed his residency at the
hospital they’d talk more, but that night they’d talked for hours.
He’d always been there for her.

Keegan returned with one of the big yellow
construction coolers. She hadn’t noticed him leave. He put it down
beside her, left, and came back with another.

“They’re gone,” he said.

He peeled the rest of the tape from her dress
and rubbed her arms before easing the dirty pink fabric up over her
head. Her sandals were the worst, the straps swollen and slippery
with blood. Keegan picked at the gory leather and glanced into her
eyes before he peeled the socks from her calves. Blood had dried on
her skin, gluing the heavy white socks to her flesh. “Stay still.”
He shrugged out of his jacket and pulled the shirt up over his
head. There was blood on the bandages wrapping his shoulder, but
the inflammation looked like it was going down.

“Stay still,” he said, dunking the wadded
fabric into the first cooler to wet it. He used it to clean her,
quick and impersonal, his brows knotted in concentration. “I’m
going to have to pour water over your feet,” he said, looking up.
His eyes slid from hers. “I need you to stay strong, okay? Take the
rag and scrub, get between your toes.”

He squeezed the bloody fabric out and handed
it to her. Jen shook, teeth clenched as tightly as her hands. When
she was done, Keegan threw her dress into the cooler and put her
shoes in on top of them.

“I’ll do your clothes,” he told her. “Your
teeth are chattering. Put your jacket on.”

Jen moved to a big, sun-warmed rock and drew
her legs up under her. “Why?” she whispered.

“It’s not over until you’re safe,” he said,
pumping the dress up and down. Water splashed out over his arms.
“The cops are dirty. My sister is fucked-up and annoying, but she
wasn’t trying to stop them. We can’t protect you if we’re locked
up.”

Keegan wrung the dress out and handed it back
to her. “Tie the jacket around your breasts, under your dress.
It’ll hold the fabric away from you.” He dumped the water out and
investigated the other cooler. There were maybe two cups left.

“Want a drink?” he asked.

“It’d make me sick,” she breathed.

She did look frighteningly bad. All pale and
queasy, like holding her stomach down had sucked the fight out of
her. Keegan shrugged into his jacket. The shirt was trashed. He
tossed it next to Jen’s socks and washed his hands.

“Time to go,” he told her. “Put your shoes
on.”

She followed him out to the parking lot.
Nothing jumped him, but shit—all his instincts were going berserk.
Something was going down and he couldn't see it.

He slid into the rental car’s driver’s seat
and put his key in the ignition before leaning across to let Jen
in. She folded herself into the passenger seat like a big pink
circus tent, the jacket way up around her chest.

Keegan turned the key. Nothing. He popped the
hood and got out. “It’s trashed,” he said, starting for Makena’s
Land Rover. “This one, too. They’re all trashed.”

Jen joined him. “Call someone?”

“Did you see me fucking re-supply? Do you
have a phone?”

Jen folded her arms and gave him a hard
stare. “There are phones at the Project.”

****

Keegan stumbled over a cluster of something
Jen called lapilli. Lapilli his ass. They were marbles. Shiny lava
colored marbles.

Jen walked out in front of him, hunched down
in her dress like a turtle looking for more shell. Her skirts
dripped and her sandals made squishy sounds. He tried to hand her
his jacket too, but she threw it back at him, shoulders stiff in a
way that made it clear she wanted nothing more to do with him. One
minute she was buying those matching jackets and condoms. The next
she’d disappeared into her bedroom and cut him out of her life.
What could have hit her hard enough to drive a wedge between them?
He’d done everything but crawl on his belly to make sure she’d want
him as much as he wanted her.

Except for that last bit with Corlis, but
that had been private. They’d been quiet. Hadn’t they? “You...heard
us?” he asked. Jesus, he was so scared he wanted to puke. What the
hell had he said?

Her heels pounded through the gravel. “I want
my condoms back.”

“My sister,” he began.

Jen moved faster away from him. “Don’t
bother. I’m glad you were so honest. It was refreshing.” Then she
stopped and switched to her polite Stalling voice. “Thank you for
saving us.”

She didn’t look at him. She hadn't looked at
him since he'd rescued her.

Keegan faltered, unable to get a word out.
He’d blown off what he was starting to feel with a badly timed
“maybe” and now it was too late. She wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t
stop. She just kept right on walking, faster now, ten yards out and
trying like hell to increase her margins.

“It’s what I do,” he called after her.

There was no room in his life for a woman. He
was gone for months and when he was home, he stayed locked up in
his office running tactical scenarios. “It’s my job!” he yelled.
“You are a freaking
job
.”

She turned then, “That’s right!” she yelled
back. “You get paid. It’s all about you, isn’t it, Keegan? Tell me,
is fucking me one of your riders, because I’ve been thinking about
it and if it is—”

“Jesus! I don’t want to fuck you!”

She turned away sharply, arms locked to her
chest. The Project rose on the horizon, a distant blur of combines
and scaffolding.

“Then I’m sorry I implied you were available
to the highest bidder,” she told him stiffly. She pulled her dress
in tight and started walking again.

Once he got her to safety the mission would
be over. There had to be some way, something that would stop her
long enough for him to—what? Put his foot in his mouth again?

“K-Keegan? Something’s coming up the access
road.”

A flash of color, orange and green. His
stomach fell away. God, not now. “It’s a gravel truck.”

Her already strained face went chalk-pale.
“My aunt?”

“The time interval is too short. Maybe more
Aina, maybe just a truck.”

“It’s between us and the Project,” she
said.

They were on the lava barren. The scrub
wasn’t high enough to hide two people, one of them in a lurid pink
dress.

“There,” said Keegan. “What about that?” He
pointed to a small island of land in the center of the barren,
crowned with trees and jagged up thrusts of rock.

“Not the escarpment. It’s shattered—”

“Stand on the side of the road and wave, or
run for cover. It’s up to you, princess.”

The truck ground closer. “Run,” she said, and
broke into a staggering sprint.

Keegan was willing to lay down money Jen had
bottomed out hours ago. But here she was, still running. They were
almost to the hill when the truck came out on the straightaway
below the final turn. Jen called it an escarpment, but it looked
like a squared off cube. Only instead of sides, there were walls.
Big slabs of broken lava.

Jen threw her head back, breathing hard.
“Maybe we can burrow in. I don’t want to climb that thing.”

“Sugar, you don’t blend. This whole place is
black and you're the only pink thing for miles.”

“It’s broken lava!”

“You think I can’t see that?” The truck moved
closer, gears shifting to make that final switchback. “Sliced or
diced, is better than shot. C’mon, Jen—”

“Keegan! Put me down. Your shoulder—”

“I need you to listen to me. Grab the top of
the wall, honey, and pull yourself over.”

“What about—oh!”

She slid over the edge, the tail of her skirt
flapping over the crumpled black stone. She was safe up there, but
not if the Aina caught him. Jen was the only reason for him to be
standing out here in the middle of nowhere. If they found him,
they'd find her. Keegan tipped his head back. He’d followed Connor
up enough buildings to see potential handholds. He got a running
start and flung himself halfway up the face, fingers digging for
purchase. It wasn’t tall, maybe eleven feet. He could do that in a
heartbeat on a good day, but today wasn’t a good day.

He wedged his fingers into a crevice and
dragged his No Fly’ed ass up another foot. The truck rumbled out on
the barren. Keegan looked over his shoulder. They hadn’t seen him
yet, but they weren’t looking. Vaguely familiar boxes bulged
through an elaborate roping of bungee cords. He knew those boxes,
but the clues were gone subliminal and he didn’t have time to think
about it.

He pulled up, lost his footing and slipped,
slamming into the rock face with his cheek pressed to the harsh
black stone. He’d only been knifed once, but he’d never forgotten
the experience. Hadn’t cavemen made knives out of rock? He made one
last effort, arms straining, and pitched over the top of the rocks
into a stand of tall grass.