Vengeance (19 page)

She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him, her sweet wine lips devouring him with a desperate need he matched with his own. He pushed as she pulled him back in, and they began their dance atop the sheets again, a faster, deeper rhythm than before, breathing in time with each other. She made her special sound, louder and louder as she threaded her fingers through his hair until he thought she might pull a clump of it out. The pain of the past left him when he gazed into her eyes, getting lost in them, wishing he could stay there and never come out. She was his new sanctuary, now and forever.

“I can't concentrate on anything but you,” she breathed. “I—” She gasped as she came, and was silent.

Her grip on him slackened. Max caught her before she fell, and hugged her tight. He pushed her hair away from her beautiful, placid face, still hot to the touch.

“I love you,” he whispered into her ear.

He didn't know why he said it, or even how true it was. He'd never told anyone he loved them, save for his mother in the way children do. Love was a weapon others could use against him, he'd learned at an early age. But it felt safe to tell her if she would never know, because it
was
true. He loved her.

The realization swept over Max, a tidal wave of emotion flowing from his heart and crashing through the rest of his body as Val clenched around him in the throes of her silent orgasm. The sensation was too much to resist, and though he didn't like to finish in her while she was in the midst of a vision, the world fell away and exploded with numbers—

Max opened his eyes and blinked a few times to orient himself in the darkness. He'd moved somehow; he lay on his back with his shoulders propped up against the headboard slats. He reached behind him and felt Val's hand providing a cushion between his head and the backboard. She lay molded to his side, her eyes closed, legs and arms intertwined with his.

“You were falling backward when I woke up,” she said, sounding half asleep. “I didn't want you to hurt your head again.”

“Um, thanks.” He hated the awkwardness that always accompanied his temporary helplessness. At least Val understood, and he didn't have to make up a lame excuse about low blood pressure.

Max inched down until his head rested on a pillow. He pulled the covers over himself and Val, enveloping them in a cocoon of warmth. The tendrils of exhaustion wrapped around his brain and began to pull him under, unrelenting this time.

He picked at a piece of Val's dull black hair spread over her velvety shoulder as her chest rose and fell against his side.

I love you.

“How long is your hair going to stay like this?” he asked.

“Twenty washes, according to the package.” The rhythm of her chest skipped when she chuckled softly. “Did your raven turn bottle black?”

“Nope. Still red. Good news for the future of your hair.”

He desperately needed sleep, but he fumbled for any excuse to stay awake. Sleep meant the end of their night—maybe their
only
night together. He rolled toward her. “Do you think your friend will come through with her car tomorrow?”

“She'll come through. She's a good person, better than me. What about your girlfriend?”

“She's not my—” He sighed, knowing she was only teasing him. “Kitty will come through. She always does.”

Max stared at the top of her head nestled in the crux of his shoulder, his mind going numb with exhaustion.

Val asked, “Do you need to write down what you saw?”

“No. It was…no new information. The Dow Jones will be up three hundred and twenty-eight points tomorrow, though.”

After a long pause in which he nearly fell asleep, she said, “Puget Sound.”

Max jerked awake. “What?”

“The water for your base, or whatever—it's Puget Sound. I saw it in my vision. I'm pretty sure it was meant for you.”

“That's nice of your vision.”

Her chest bounced against his as she laughed, then all he heard was her deep breathing. Max strained for the shrouded lamp on the nightstand and clicked it off. It was cruel to keep waking her for his own selfish desires. He held her in his arms and tried to sear the moment into his memory, wishing daybreak and the horrors it would likely bring wouldn't come.

N
orman adjusted a deep red tie in his bathroom mirror, careful to line the knot up exactly with the buttons of his black suit coat. Attention to detail was the difference between someone who truly cared and someone going through the motions, those born to lead and those who only wished to lead. His troops—and voters—could tell the difference. He practiced a warm-but-authoritative smile and flexed his orating muscles.

“By targeting measured tax breaks at married couples struggling to provide for their children, my Family Values Initiative will promote strong family bonds and a platform for success…a
springboard
for success…
ensure
the success of committed married couples…of any gender.”
Don't cringe.

Today's outreach event at the Pacific Science Center was critical. He needed to nail all his talking points. He and Mayor Brest were neck and neck in the polls, despite Norman's right-leaning views in left-leaning Seattle. Brest hurt his lead by siding with the Puyallup Indian Tribe in a dispute over building a casino on contested wetlands, royally pissing off the environmental nuts. Unfortunately for Brest, those nuts made up most of the Seattle population. Norman opposed the vice of gambling; pretending he cared about the environment led to the same result. His political action committee got his message across loud and clear thanks to ads and endorsements funded with Lester Carressa's secret stash. It wasn't like Lester needed the money, and the manhunt for Maxwell and his bitch Valentine Shepherd were exactly what they deserved. The Carressa kid was guilty of murder, after all.

It was too bad about Dean, though. At least his high school chum's suicide meant one less weak link to worry about.

He wished all the dirty dealings hadn't been necessary, but sometimes you had to play dirty for the greater good—a valuable lesson he'd learned on the battlefield. Regrets wouldn't bring his mood down. Everything was moving in his favor. He was a townie, an experienced leader, an honorably retired colonel with a firm but fair leadership style the civilians craved. Victory was so close, he could taste it.

And when he won—no more Gino. He'd be done with that shameful part of his life. He could disconnect himself from the hysteria of campaigning and get back to his conservative roots, take the city where he
really
wanted it to go.

Norman tightened his tie so it choked him a bit; the pressure kept him on his toes. He smiled in the mirror, checked his cosmetically whitened teeth, and moved the corners of his mouth up and down by fractions of an inch for the perfect smile.

“I can't stress enough my deep support for free-range farming—”

Movement at the bathroom's entrance caught his eye. His wife stood in the doorway in a red knee-length dress that matched his tie, delicate white pearls around her neck, and her dark hair in a sensible, loose bun. Mascara streaked down her cheeks as she cried.

“Honey, what's wrong?” he asked. Did their idiot son get himself suspended from his ROTC detachment again? Hopefully Norman could get whatever it was this time straightened out before the Science Center event in a couple hours.

Delilah held up her cell phone with a shaking hand. “What the hell is this?”

Norman walked to her and looked at the phone's screen where a video played. It took him a moment to recognize what it was. When he did, his stomach dropped and a cold sweat broke out over his entire body.

The world stopped as he watched himself, Gino, and that blond prostitute having sex together in Gino's penthouse suite. Their moans of passion through the tinny phone speakers made them sound like cartoon characters.

“
What is this, Norman?”

He couldn't speak for several seconds. “It's not me,” he finally stammered. “It's…it's some kind of trick.” His consciousness seemed to float away from him, his mind desperate to escape the situation. “I would never do something like this,” he said in a voice that sounded smaller and weaker than his own. “Please don't tell anyone.”

Delilah slapped him hard across the face. He staggered back from the shock of it.

“You disgusting pig.” She spit the words out. “After thirty-two years of marriage. After everything I've done for you.” Delilah threw the phone at him. It bounced off his chest and landed on the ground at his feet. She turned on her heels and fled to their bedroom, slamming the door behind her, sobs echoing down the hallway.

Norman stood frozen for a moment as he reeled. Muffled moans still issued forth from the phone, lying facedown on the linoleum between his wingtips. This wasn't happening. No, no, no. He would wake up any moment now and it would've all been a nightmare, a cautionary tale…

He didn't wake up. Norman wasn't sure how long he stood staring into the empty doorway until his mind slinked back into his body and demanded he do something. He picked up the phone, a crack now splintered in the corner of the glass. How was this filmed? Who filmed it? The Russian whore? The man that'd left Gino's place right as he arrived? Gino himself? How did his wife get it?

Norman stopped the video and backed up through her phone's menu until he reached the text through which the video had been transmitted.
Norman sends his love
was all that was written in the body of the message. He looked at the phone number from where the text originated. It was Gino's.

Rage exploded through Norman, so hot it blurred his vision. Gino sent the video to Delilah because he was a psychopath, or maybe he wanted more money, or he wanted Norman to leave his wife. Who else would send the video to her and not directly to him with a demand for cash, or to his opponent, or reporters?

He could work things out with Delilah. She'd given up her own Army commission from West Point and stayed with him throughout his entire military career, through his year-long deployments and assignments to remote bases. She supported him when he told her he wanted to get into politics. They could weather this. He'd go to counseling, beg God for forgiveness, repent. As long as no one else saw the video, his political dreams weren't dead.

As the initial shock wore off, his tactical acumen kicked in. He knew what he had to do—eliminate the source. He didn't need Gino anymore. With less than two weeks until Election Day, he could ride his current momentum into office.

Norman pulled his own phone from his pocket and texted Gino:
Let's talk terms. Meet me at the Pacific Science Center today, 30 mins before showtime. I'll unlock a back door for you.

It was a risky move. Norman and Gino had been careful never to be seen together, so no one could connect the known criminal to the political upstart. But it was a risk he had to take. The endgame had arrived. Time to start sacrificing pawns for the checkmate.

V
al racked back the slide of her nine millimeter Glock handgun and peered down the barrel, confirming once again that it was free of debris or defects.

Max looked up from the half-dozen papers he'd laid out on the foot of the bed, pencil in his hand, a swath of light from the afternoon sun cutting across the mess of numbers. His eyebrow cocked. “Has your gun spontaneously stopped working yet?”

She snapped the slide back in place. “It never hurts to be sure.”

“Unless you break it by checking too many times.”

Val gave him the side-eye, set the gun down on the nightstand, and picked up Lester's revolver.

“If you're itching to kill time,” he said, “there's something called a ‘quickie'—”

“No,” she said more harshly than she'd intended.

Max's face hardened, putting in place the mask he wore to hide his feelings. “I was kidding.”

Val took a deep breath and forced herself to relax. “I mean
no
because we'll never get out of bed. You are not quick.”

He eyed her as if judging her sincerity, then gave her a cockeyed smile. “I'll take that as a compliment.”

He should. Their long night together seemed like a strange, erotic dream completely separate from the chaos that raged around them. She'd felt things for him that, in the light of day, she wasn't sure were real. After they'd slept through the entire morning, she'd awoken convinced she had imagined the best sex of her life as a distraction from the horrible reality of Robby and Dean's deaths. But it
had
happened, and Val had leapt out of bed and busied herself with preparations so she wouldn't be trapped there with Max, lost in him, denying reality. She wouldn't trade justice for Robby for bliss with Max.

“
Mercy
,” he said as he leaned over the stationery. He poked one of the pages. “This section is an alphabetic cipher that spells out the word ‘mercy.' Why mercy?”

“Sure it's not
Mercer
, as in Mercer Island or Mercer Street?”

“No, the word is definitely ‘mercy.'”

Val shrugged and checked her watch. “Better figure it out quick. We need to leave soon.” She flicked open the revolver's cylinder and sighed at the two bullets loaded within. Buying more ammo was out of the question. One of them would have to make do with the bare minimum for self-defense.

“Do you know how to shoot a gun?” she asked him.

“Yeah.”

She held out the revolver. “Have you shot this one?”

He looked at the gun and hesitated. “Not…really.”

“What do you mean?”

“I tried to shoot it once, but it jammed.”

“When?”

“A long time ago, when I was a teenager.”

“Have you shot it since then?”

“No.”

Val frowned and shifted her gaze between the revolver and the Glock. She needed to be ready to fight off Norman and his henchman so they didn't fulfill her vision and murder her, but Max was in danger as well. She had military training; he didn't. He was injured; she wasn't.

“You take my gun,” she said.

Max shook his head. “You saw yourself die multiple times. I think you need it more than me.”

“Two guys will try to kill me, and I have two bullets. It'll do.”

He folded his arms. “I am not taking your gun.”

Val scowled at his stubbornness. They didn't have time for this fight. “Okay, fine. You take your father's gun, then.” She held the revolver out to him.

Max looked at the gun, and a hint of deep unease flickered in his eyes. “I'm not taking that one, either.”

“Max, come on.” She pushed the revolver at him. “You need a gun. It's nonnegotiable. People are trying to kill us—
both
of us. At least take it so you can wave it around if you have to.”

He swallowed hard. “I can't.”

“Why not?”

“Because
I tried to kill myself with it
, okay?”

Val pulled the gun back. “But it jammed,” she said softly.

“Yes, the fucking thing jammed.”

Was it the gun that set off his panic attack in Lester's study? Seemed likely, considering his awful childhood and monster of a father. The revolver was the ultimate reminder of his status as a prisoner in his own life. Fate wouldn't even let him commit suicide.

She held her Glock out to him. “Take mine,” she said, quiet but firm. “You need a gun.”

His lips compressed to thin lines, and he reached for the revolver. As he held it, his hand began to shake. Max clenched his jaw and stared at the hand, willing the tremors to stop. He grabbed his wrist with his other hand and squeezed until his knuckles turned white.

Val cupped his hands in hers and eased the revolver out of his grip.

He scoffed and shook his head. “Goddammit,” he muttered.

“Take—”

“I'm not taking your gun!”

She hugged him, absorbing the tiny earthquakes running through his body. The feel of his stubble pressed against her cheek brought back the most intimate memories of their night together, the parts that felt most like a wonderful dream. She had to force herself to let him go.

“If I have the revolver, then the future is already different than what I saw.” Val looked into his eyes, the most gorgeous pair she'd ever seen. “Please take my gun, Max. Do it for me.”

A tumult of emotions flashed across his face as the twin desires to honor her request and maximize her protection fought with each other. She ran a finger along the edge of his ear, and felt a pang of guilt for so shamelessly manipulating his emotions to get what she wanted. But it was stupid for him to go forth without any protection for her sake. She couldn't live with herself if he died, too, another lost love…

Max let out a long exhale and took the Glock. He wedged it into the back waistband of his jeans. “Please tell me you've won marksmanship awards.”

“No, but I'm an expert pistol whipper.” She looked at her watch. “We'd better go.”

Max gathered up his papers and put them into his jean pockets, then pulled on his sweater and baseball cap. Val considered cleaning up, but there was no way they could hide evidence that they'd been there, so why bother? It didn't matter anyway; once they walked out the door, hiding ceased to be an option. They'd either grab Delilah, find the accountant, and expose Norman Barrister, or die trying.

Val left a couple hundred-dollar bills from Lester's wad of cash on the counter as compensation for the owners, then followed Max out the back door they'd come through the night before. He reset the security code as Val took in the crisp afternoon air, a rare sunny day that also happened to be unseasonably cold. She hugged her hoodie around herself and walked to the quiet street with Max.

They stopped at the sidewalk and looked at each other. Beneath the bill of his baseball cap, the light hit his face in such a way she could see a shadow of Robby in him. The eyes and lips were different, and Max's face was more angular, but if he'd lightened his hair and gained thirty-five pounds, the resemblance would've been uncanny. She couldn't believe she hadn't seen it before—or maybe she had unconsciously, and that explained why she was drawn to him.

Max pointed behind her. “Remember to take a left at the church to go the back way to the gas station.”

“Okay.”

“And wait for me to get there with the accountant, if at all possible. I mean it—
wait for me
.”

“I'll try.”

He opened his mouth like he wanted to say something else, but closed it again. Val took a breath and hardened her heart, narrowing her mind's eye for a fight. As she began to turn away, he touched her hand. She turned back, threw herself into his arms, and kissed him deeply, drinking him in like it might be the last time they would ever taste each other, until they ran out of breath.

“Come back to me,” he breathed.

She caressed his cheek. “I will.”

They turned from each other, their entwined fingers slipping apart as they walked in opposite directions.

Val pushed back tears.
He'll be fine. Focus on reaching Delilah. Don't look back.
When she reached the corner, she looked back. He'd already disappeared down another street. They were each on their own now. She felt weaker somehow.

After she'd made a left at the church and reached the local gas station, Val loitered at the corner and pretended to talk on her cell phone while she waited—and prayed—for Stacey to arrive.

“Come on, Stacey,” she muttered into her dead phone while her eyes scanned the street. “Please, please,
please
show.”

As the seeds of panic began to take root, a black Toyota Corolla pulled up next to Val. For a second her brain screamed at her to run, convinced she'd been spotted by a cop in an unmarked police car, until she saw Stacey in the driver's seat. Val jumped into the passenger's side and breathed a huge sigh of relief.

“God, thank you, Stacey.”

She gave Val a curt nod, the chilliness in her demeanor underlining their many unresolved issues, all of which were Val's fault.

Val was about to launch into a long apology when she noticed how very un-Stacey the car looked—empty ashtray, clean dashboard, no junk in the back. “Whose car is this?”

“A friend of mine,” Stacey said as she drove.

“Does she know what you're doing with it?”

“Yeah.”

“And she's cool with that?”

“She's cool. I'm actually driving to a coffee shop where she'll meet me and give me a ride home. From there you can take the car.”

Stacey was making new friends. She deserved them; Val had been a shitty one since this whole mess started.

“Stacey, I'm sorry for everything. I'm sorry I've only been asking you for stuff. I'm sorry I've been keeping you in the dark. I'm sorry I slept with you and then ran away.”

Stacey was quiet for a long while. Then she glanced at Val, the coldness in her eyes beginning to thaw. “I'm willing to plead temporary insanity if you are.”

“Yes, God yes!” Her voice choked up. “You're my best friend and I've been treating you like crap and I love you and I'm sorry.”

Stacey smiled and put a hand on Val's shoulder. “Girl, you're such a softie.”

They both laughed hard at that, the same way they did when they watched a terrible movie together and tried to one-up each other with snarky comments all the way through. Maybe they'd be okay after all.

“Where's Max?” Stacey asked.

“He's trying to track down the accountant who's been helping Barrister steal Lester Carressa's embezzled money.”

“I thought Max couldn't remember who the guy was.”

“He can't, but…we have clues now.”

Stacey lifted an eyebrow. “From
visions
?” She looked curious, like a friend and not a romantic rival. Thank God.

Val shrugged. “We had to. We were getting nowhere without them.”

“Was it at least good?”

A slight smile touched Val's lips. “Yeah, it was.”

“You don't love him, do you?”

She stared out the window from beneath the hood of her sweatshirt and frowned. “I don't know. I still love Robby.” She looked at Stacey. “Can you love two people at once?”

“Yes, you can.” Stacey pulled into a mini-mall and parked in front of a glass storefront with a coffeepot-shaped sign hung out front, “The Pothead” emblazoned on it in big looping letters. “This is it. You sure you know what you're doing?”

Val snickered. “Hell no. But it's now or never.”

They leaned over and hugged each other tight.

“Please be as careful as possible while confronting a homicidal lunatic,” Stacey said. “And don't scratch the car.”

“I'll do my best to honor those requests.”

Stacey hopped out. Val slid into the driver's seat and waved to her friend as she drove away, hoping it wasn't the last time they'd see each other.

Val doubled back and followed Mercer Street until the white arches of the Pacific Science Center loomed on the horizon. The dashboard clock told her she had about half an hour before the science outreach event was scheduled to start. Select side streets had already been cut off and were thick with foot traffic meandering to the event—bearded hipsters and their kids, Republican parents who supported “change they could believe in.” Val surveyed the landscape and pinpointed the spot where the fire would be that she'd run from in her vision. She drove around to the other side of the complex and parked on the street. The more details she changed from her vision, the better chance she had of living. Val checked the revolver one more time, lining up one of the two bullets in the chamber. Then she pulled the sweatshirt's hood down over her face and got out of the car.

Faint rock music wafted from the Science Center, dark green pines peeking into an azure sky while the Space Needle ruled over them all almost directly above her. It was a gorgeous fall day in progress. Her gaze swept over her surroundings and homed in on potential threats: a small group of excited college students; a middle-aged couple walking their sweater-clad pug; a couple of police officers down the street giving directions to a woman and her young daughter. For the moment she'd gone unnoticed. Please let it stay that way, at least until she found Delilah.

Adopting a casual slouch, Val crossed the road and began to walk up a soft grassy slope. She was halfway up the hill when a concussive force slammed into her from behind, knocking her forward onto her knees. The explosion roared through her ears for a terrifying second, replaced a moment later with a cacophony of car alarms and shrieks of horror. She looked back and gawked at the husk of Stacey's friend's car engulfed in flames, a black ring scarring the pavement around the explosion's epicenter—the trunk.