Tequila Mockingbird (32 page)

“And I’m grateful for that,” Forest replied solemnly, the worry in his face lightening a little. “Do you need coddling? What’s involved in that? Foot massages? Hot towels after you shave?”

“I’ll write you a list.” Connor tangled his fingers into Forest’s hair and pulled him down for a kiss. Cupping his cast to the small of Forest’s back, he craned up and dipped his tongue past Forest’s lips, tasting the soft heat he found there.

Forest made a husky mewling noise in his throat, and Connor was more than willing to forgo the drops. In fact, if he could reach the table next to the couch, he’d pull out the bottle of lube he’d tucked in there and show Forest point by point everything that
should
be on a coddling list, including a few he had in mind to do to Forest if the man ever felt like he needed it. He opened his mouth, about to suggest just that, when the house suddenly went silent.

Then they were plunged into a deep, heavy darkness.

Sour mash and cheap wine

Smokestack lightning, bathtub gin

Took me for a slow ride

Damn woman ’most done me in

Popping corks in long black limos

Champagne giggles and lots of skin

Breaking hearts more than a million times

Just like my own has been

—
Riding Low

“W
HERE
’
S
YOUR
phone? I want you to call emergency while I check things out. Landline’s in the living room. We might not find it in the dark.” Connor grasped Forest’s hips to slide him off. In the black, the world seemed to flow and tilt around him, but Con’s hands were firm and steadying. “Can you get to it? Mine’s dead. I’ve got it charging in the bedroom.”

“In the kitchen. It’s on the charger too.” He tried to peer through the darkness, waiting for his eyes to adjust. “Maybe the streetlight‘s still on. The hedges are too high, dude. I can’t see shit. Is it just the house?”

“Looks like it. Could be the fuses, but I’m not going to chance it.” Con stood, a darker shape against the already dark shapes around them. “Grab a hold of my waistband. I want to make sure you’re safe. Flashlight’s in the garage somewhere. Shit. I forgot it out there.”

Outside, in the distance, lights shone down the hill, and there was a bit of a glow coming from someplace beyond the high boxwoods lining the backyard, more than likely coming from a streetlight in front. Built on a cul-de-sac, the Victorian sat on one of the city’s many serpentine tiers, its back facing an open view of the harbor and the streets below.

The rain made it difficult for ambient light to seep past the house’s partially drawn heavy curtains, and Forest felt his way to the kitchen, keeping his fingers hooked into Con’s pants. He was tired. Hell, Con was probably worn down to the bone, and he would love for it to be as simple as something inside of the garage. His hopes were dashed when the sound of breaking glass came from behind them. Connor’s back went rigid under the light brush of Forest’s knuckles, and Con grabbed for the doorframe.

Con moved quickly, a silent rush of muscle, and forcibly dragged Forest along behind him. They hit the swinging doors to the kitchen fast, and Forest bit down a yelp when the shutter-style doors nearly struck his back. With its windows facing the side yard and its high fence, the kitchen was nearly pitch, but Forest had a good idea of where his phone was.

The house moaned, creaking as the wind outside kicked up. The family room lights flickered a few times, then went dark, and over the kitchen’s saloon-style doors, Forest caught sight of a tree branch scraping at one of the slender windows facing the backyard.

“It’s okay, Con. It’s a tree.” Forest found his phone and turned it on, illuminating a small area of the kitchen. “Not much charge but plugged in….”

A blast shattered the window over the sink, peppering the kitchen with shot. Something stung Forest’s face, and a burn cut through his right shoulder. It was a deafening wave of terror and sound, fire flashing up from the side yard. He caught a glimpse of a silhouette before Connor dragged him down to the floor. Rolling him over, Con tucked Forest under the thick-legged oak table set against a wall.

Another boom came upon them, tearing through the kitchen. Wood flew from shattered cabinets, and some of the shot must have hit a stack of dishes because it began to rain porcelain and glass. The shooter wasn’t alone. Moments later, there was a shout—a man calling out to someone else to get into the house and take care of things.

Forest’s stomach knotted up tight around itself. He was probably one of those
things
.

He’d held onto his phone, but it’d been ripped from the charger when they’d gone down. Even though Forest could make out Con’s mouth moving in the phone’s pale light, he couldn’t hear a damned thing. The ringing in his ears ululated, then died away, leaving his head with a deep throb. Up against the wall, there was nowhere for him to go, and a part of him—a long-buried frightened little boy part—panicked at being trapped between a warm body and a hard place.

Taking a deep breath helped. The fear receded, slinking off into the crevices it’d come from. The dark held something more than shadows. There was a malevolent stillness to it now. Even through the buzzing echoes in his ears, Forest felt the weight of something—something dark—pressing in on him.

“You okay?” Con asked gruffly. His hands were running over Forest’s limbs and chest.

“My shoulder hurts. The right one.” Forest kept his voice low and then bit his lip to keep from whimpering when Con’s fingers explored his shoulder. “Not bad. Not until you touch it.”

“Sorry, love. Okay, you call 911,” Connor whispered. “I’m going for my gun.”

“Dude—” Forest swallowed his protest. Connor was a cop. An injured one, but a cop just the same. “Be careful.”

“Sure thing, babe,” Connor promised solemnly, and then he was gone. “You too.”

The bite of wind coming through the blasted window cut through Forest, and he curled up as tight as he could, crouching under the heavy table. Fingers shaking, he dialed emergency and waited for someone to answer.

W
HEN
HE
’
D
converted an oddly placed half bath into a pantry for the kitchen, Connor’d wondered if he’d been smart to put his gun safe there. Now, standing in the eerie green glow of the safe’s battery backup lights, he pondered if he shouldn’t have built in an entire armory instead.

Because he really could have used an AK-47 right about then.

The trembling in Forest’s body nearly broke Connor. The last thing he’d wanted was to leave the man, but shit had come to his door, and he was going to do his damned best to shove it right back out.

His arm was unwieldy, and not for the first time that day, he silently cursed Miki’s kill instinct. The light set above the keypad was barely bright enough for him to see the numbers, and Con quickly punched in the code, letting out an unexpected sigh of relief when the safe door clicked open. Unthinkingly, he reached in with his right hand and winced when he banged the cast against the edge of the safe.

“Okay, beat the shit out of Miki,” he muttered, grabbing his Glock with his left hand. Tucking the weapon into the back of his pants, he pulled out his spare piece, a Beretta his father’d given him. He slammed a load into the Beretta and headed back out.

Connor stopped long enough to grab his armored vest off its hook by the garage door. It was a short struggle to put it on, and when he glanced beneath the table, he was relieved to find Forest looking up at him, his lover’s phone shining over his pale face.

“They coming?” he asked.

“Yeah, they told me to stay on the line,” Forest murmured. “She also said to tell you not to do anything stupid.”

The sound of more glass breaking reached the kitchen, and Connor growled back, “I’m not the one doing something stupid. Get into the pantry and close the door.”

“I’m not leaving you out here,” he argued.

Of course Forest would argue. Connor’d learned quickly the man gave in only when it suited him. Apparently, the situation didn’t suit him.

“I’d rather you get into the bathroom and get into the tub, but it’s too far. They’re already in the house.” He didn’t need much light to see Forest’s stubborn scowl. There wasn’t a lot of time, and Connor didn’t want to waste it arguing. He had to find the men breaking into his house, and he couldn’t do that while worrying if Forest was safe. Pulling a trick out of Brigid’s guilt bag, he asked softly, “Please?”

“Fucker,” Forest grumbled as he scrambled into the pantry, then closed the door behind him.

“Lock it from inside. And don’t come out for anyone but me. Tell dispatch I’m armed.” Connor pressed his hand against the narrow wall between the pantry door and interior hall. Casting his eyes up quickly, he beseeched, “Keep him safe for me, God. That’s all I’m asking in this.”

Rollins’s actions didn’t make any sense. Revenge? Killing Forest wouldn’t gain him anything. Not any more than killing Marshall had. There had to be something else there—something broken inside the man that somehow gave the whole mess perspective.

At that moment, he couldn’t care about motive. Hell, Connor barely had the patience to hunt down the men coming for his lover. The only reason he didn’t grab Forest and beat a path to the door was he couldn’t be sure there wasn’t someone else waiting outside to mow them down. At least in the house, he had the advantage. He knew every turn and hallway in the Victorian, as well as the areas he hadn’t quite gotten to—like the living room with its creaky joists and iffy floorboards.

He’d thought about going into the garage to fetch the flashlight for Forest, but he didn’t know if the pantry door sat flush to the floor. A strip of light would draw someone to his presence. No, Con thought, better he stay as much in the dark as possible.

Reaching the foyer, Connor was thankful for the soft ambient glow coming through the half-moon window above the heavy front door. Keeping his back to the wall, he let the shadows cover him, then called out to the rest of the house.

The interior of the Victorian was still a warren, a
Z
of a hallway with rooms connected to one another with nested doors. There’d been a plan to open up the space, eliminating as many of the jogs as possible, but for now, they served as a baffle. There’d be bottles of whiskey sent to his brothers for being too busy for serious wall demolition.

“Rollins? That you?” His voice bounced, echoing around the enclosed space. “Tell me you brought more than one guy to take me out!”

From the sounds coming from the back of the house, Connor guessed his intruders were having a difficult time getting up over the window boxes built along the outer sills. A bout of heated swearing and pained cries followed by wood cracking lightened Connor’s worry. The boxes wouldn’t be able to hold up a full-grown man, but obviously Rollins and whomever he brought with him didn’t know that.

“Hey, whoever’s with that asshole, did he tell you I’m a cop?” Con slid down the wall and switched over to the short
L
in the hall, bringing him in line with the downstairs bedroom. Another few feet, and he’d be able to wedge himself into a corner at the back of the house and see into the long family room.

“He’s a fucking cop? You came here to rip off a fucking cop?”

Con smiled, glad for the reaction. He heard another man cussing the first out, but no one else chimed in. The rain thickened, muting anything else the men said.

“Your friend Gary didn’t come here to rip me off.” Con risked peeking around the corner to see if the way was clear. Drawing his gun up, he slid forward another foot. “He came here to kill me. Like you killed Frank Marshall and everyone else who got in your way. You’ve got a lot to answer for, Rollins.”

“I came here for that fucking faggot whore.” A weedy male voice broke through the sound of the rain. “You can walk away from this!”

“Yeah, I don’t think so.” Another step and he froze. They’d brought a flashlight with them, and Con could see the powerful beam cut across the hallway opening. If he could make it past the doorway, he’d be able to get enough cover on the other side to bring the men down. “Kind of fond of Forest.”

“Fucking bitch put me in jail,” Rollins—if Con guessed right—screamed back. “He started this whole damned thing. A couple more minutes, and he’d have been begging me for my dick. Fucking Marshall should have minded his own business!”

Connor remained silent, watching the beam cut across the hall again. The second the light passed back toward the front of the house, he was off, his bare feet moving across the slick wood floor. Grabbing at the shadows on the other side, he pressed his shoulders against the bathroom door at the end of the hall. Bringing up his matte black gun, Con took a deep steadying breath and waited for Rollins to move into his line of fire.

S
OMETHING
WAS
wrong. Forest could feel it. Or at least he guessed it was. There’d been some muffled scrapes coming through the walls, but after that, nothing. Not until he heard a loud thump.