White Lies (33 page)

When Zach realized that Jack wasn't shooting at him, he scrambled toward the forest. Bits and pieces of Jack and Katrina's conversation floated to him. He could only make out a few words above the roar of the rain, but from the forceful tone, he knew they were arguing.

Zach reached the tree line. He was home free. All he had to do was keep going, find his way to a road or a cottage, and get to a police station.

But he didn't flee.

Katrina was likely in trouble. After all, she'd just betrayed Jack to the dead cop. What would he do to her? Zach didn't know, but he did know she had risked herself coming out here to save him, and he couldn't in all good conscience leave her on her own.

He picked up a stick about the length and width of his arm. He didn't ruminate on what he was about to do. If he did, he would chicken out. He zeroed in on Katrina and Jack's voices and spotted them in the dark, two lumpy shapes standing next to a tree. He started toward them, slowly, quietly, stopping when he was less than twenty feet away. He could see them better now. Jack's back was to him.

One chance.

He gripped the stick more tightly, brought it back like he was up to bat, and closed the remaining distance between them with long, careful steps.

“Jack,” Katrina said, and there was breathless terror in her voice.

Jack raised the gun. He was going to shoot her.

Zach abandoned stealth and made a final dash. Jack spun around at the last moment. Too late. Zach cracked the stick across the side of his face. Something that could only be blood splattered everywhere. Jack collapsed to the ground with a grunt. Zach was still pumped up on fear and adrenaline and craziness and he kept swinging the stick, bashing Jack's head in as hard as he could, over and over. Katrina appeared beside him, shouting something, pulling him away. Panting, he stepped back. He felt spaced out. He blinked and looked at Katrina.

“You okay?” he asked, and his voice seemed like a stranger's voice, like when you listen to yourself on the answering machine.

She hugged him fiercely. “He was going to kill me,” she blurted, the words muffled by his sweater.

Zach looked over her head at Jack. The boxer was sniffing around the limp body. “He's not going to hurt you now,” he said.

“Is he dead?”

“I don't know.” He stepped apart and felt for a pulse. “No, he's alive.”

“What do we do with him?”

“Leave him.”

“What if he comes around?”

“There's no way we can carry him back to the house.” Zach shrugged, trying to read Katrina's face in the dark. “Should I... I don't know—finish it?”

“Kill him?” She sounded appalled.

“If he comes around, he's going to come after us again.”

“Then we don't have any time to waste,” she said decisively. “We have to get back to my place, call the police, get them out here.”

“I don't like leaving him.”

“There's no other option.” She retrieved the pistol from where Jack had dropped it in the mud. “And we'll have this, just in case.”

Katrina's living room resembled the scene of a drug bust gone wrong. Officer Murray's body was sprawled dead center. An arm was bent awkwardly behind his back. Glassy eyes stared at the ceiling. His yellow windbreaker and Polo shirt were stained red, with more syrupy blood pooled around him. Most of the glass in the front bay window was on the lawn. What remained in the frame resembled jagged teeth. A stack of boxes had been knocked over, spilling the few things she'd left in them across the floor.
A drug bust gone wrong?
she thought.
Hell, this was all because of a lie gone wrong
.

“Lock the doors and windows,” Katrina told Zach. “I'll be right back.”

She went to the bedroom, shadowed by Bandit, peeled the sheet off the futon, and returned to the living room, where she used it to carefully cover the poor cop's body. She grabbed her cell phone and called the police. She spoke to the dispatcher for a few minutes, explaining what had happened, answering some questions, then hung up.

Zach had returned from his task of securing the house. He said, “What do you want me to tell them? The police? I'll tell them whatever you want me to.”

“I want you to tell the truth, Zach.”

“But you don't have to be involved. I'll say I saw Jack kill the old man, then drive the body away, all by himself.”

“The truth,” she repeated. “That's it.”

“Are you sure?”

“I've never been more sure of anything in my life.”

There was only one chair, so they both settled down on the floor to wait for the police to arrive. Katrina wondered what was going to happen to her. She could not, as Zach had suggested, put all the blame on Jack. Even if it worked, and she emerged from the circus that would surely follow this night blame free, she would not be able to live with herself. She'd made a mistake, one with unthinkable consequences, and she had to pay for that, even if it meant she would grow old, childless, behind bars.

“Did you hear that?” Zach whispered suddenly.

Katrina was immediately alert. “What?”

“The back door. It sounded like someone was trying to get in.”

Jack! she thought. He'd followed them back here!

“Are you sure?” she demanded. All she could hear was the drone of rain on the roof.

“I … I don't know. I think so.”

Katrina got to her feet. “You locked everything, right?”

“Except that.” He nodded at the front window.

“It's at least five feet off the ground. Jack would have to hoist himself up and through. No way. Not with his shoulder and all that glass.”

“He's pretty strong,” Zach said doubtfully, fear permeating his voice.

“It doesn't matter. The police will be here any minute. We just need to stay put.”

“Can you use that?” Zach asked, indicating the gun.

She nodded. “If I have to.”

Jack stared at the back door, wondering what to do. The bitch had locked it. No matter. He would find a way in. He had to find a way in. Because that little shit Zach was with her.

The prick had surprised him, just as old Charlie had. But it didn't matter. It had worked to Jack's advantage. Now he knew where Zach was. If he acted quickly enough, he could still have everything turn out his way.

No witnesses.

Jack would have kicked down the door, but he wasn't sure he
had the strength. Aside from the fact his head felt like someone had just played polo with it, the entire left side of his body was numb, the right side not much better. Besides, noise was not good. He could only assume Katrina had the SIG, since he hadn't been able to find it when he came around.

He stumbled along the side of the house, trying the windows, finding them all locked. A wave of dizziness washed through him.

Think. Don't lose focus. Think.

He crouched down and pried the screen off a basement window. The window slid open without protest.
Yes
. He lowered himself in, his shoulder screaming in protest as he contorted his body to fit through the small space.

Then his feet touched the floor and he was inside.

“Maybe it was nothing after all,” Zach said. He was pacing back and forth.

“But maybe it was,” Katrina told him over her shoulder. She was peering out the window. “Where are the damn police?”

“You don't happen to have another gun around somewhere, do you?”

She turned. “How about a knife?”

“Yeah, anything. A knife would be good.”

Katrina started down the hallway to the kitchen. Just as she was passing the basement door, it exploded open. One of Jack's massive arms wrapped around her, tugging her forcefully against him. His other hand smothered the gun, aiming it upward, toward the ceiling. She screamed in surprise. Kicked and struggled. But she couldn't free herself from his viselike hold. He shoved her forward, back to the living room. They crashed through the door. Zach, who had obviously heard her scream, had backed up to the bay window, like maybe he was thinking about jumping through it again. Bandit leapt at Jack. Jack swung his foot, catching the dog under the jaw. Bandit dropped to the floor, motionless.

“So you wanted to leave me for dead, huh?” he hissed into her ear. It sounded as if his throat was full of razor blades.

“We could have killed you,” she said. “But we didn't.”

“Should I thank you for that?” He directed her arm so she was now pointing the gun at Zach. “Should I thank this cowardly piece of shit for hitting me when I wasn't looking?”

“Zach, jump!” she shouted.

“If you move a muscle,” Jack growled, “I'll snap her neck.”

Zach glanced at the window but didn't move.

“What do you want?” she said.

“Exactly what I'd planned. To leave a lot of bodies and let the cops sort it all out. Only now you're going to be part of the death toll.”

“They'll figure it out.”

“I'll take my chances. Now pull the trigger.”

“No!”

“Do it!”

“You're going to kill me afterward.”

In the distance came the howl of approaching sirens.

“No fucking time for this,” Jack snapped, adjusting his hand so it cupped hers, his finger on top of her trigger finger. “Say goodnight, Zach.”

At the last moment Katrina cocked her arm back, trying to aim the gun at Jack's face. She squeezed the trigger. The slug plowed harmlessly into the ceiling. But the noise of the blast an inch from Jack's ear blew his head back, causing him to loosen his grip on her.

She dropped to the floor, unable to hear anything except a maddening ringing.

Seizing the opportunity, Zach rushed forward, bowling into Jack, knocking him backward. For a moment they struggled like drunken dancers, each trying to keep to their feet. Zach was out of control, throwing wild haymakers, trying to hit Jack's bad shoulder. Then, with a grunt that seemed to indicate he'd had enough, Jack pulled some martial-arts combo, punching Zach in the gut, elbowing him in the jaw hard enough to loosen teeth, and finishing up with a skull-crushing head butt. Zach would have collapsed had Jack not grabbed him by the hair and yanked him back up so he had him tight against his body.

The world was swimming. Through bleary eyes, Zach saw Katrina scuttling away, the pistol aimed at them. He suddenly understood that Jack was using him as a human shield.

Outside cars screeched to a halt. Red-and-blue lights flashed through the window, momentarily eclipsed by a shock of sky-wide lightning. The sirens went silent. A burst of thunder shook the house.

“It's too late,” Katrina said. “Let him go, Jack.”

“Looks like we're all dying here tonight.”

Zach felt Jack's arm tighten over his throat.

“Wait!” Katrina raised the pistol in a nonthreatening manner. “I'll set this aside if you let him go.”

“No!” Zach said. “He'll shoot you!”

Jack gave his hair a snappy tug, which shut him up.

“Okay,” he said. “Set the pistol down.”

She did.

“Now kick it toward me.”

“Let him go.”

“The gun first.”

She hesitated but kicked the weapon forward. Jack shoved Zach aside and snatched it up. Armed, he started toward the hallway, apparently believing he still had time to make an escape out the back, when someone on a bullhorn outside said: “How the hell are ya, Jack? It's been a long time. But what d'ya say? Have a few minutes to chat with your old buddy from Virginia?”

Katrina watched Jack freeze midstep. He slowly turned around. His face was impassive, but she thought she saw something in his dark eyes she'd never seen before: fear. He went to the front of the room and flicked off the lights. Pressed his back against the wall, next to the shattered window Zach had jumped through. He shouted above the storm, “Is that you, Russ?”

“I'm glad you haven't forgotten the voice of a good friend.”

“You're no friend of mine. Not anymore.”

“Ah, Jack. But you're too hard on me. I'm not the one who's a wanted fugitive. That's you.”

“What are you doing here, Russ?”

“What do you think? I've come to haul your ass in.”

“How did you find me?”

“News travels fast these days, Jack. When we got word of a Jack Reeves involved in a possible homicide up in the beautiful state of Washington, we called the locals for a description. I was whisked up here just as quick as can be on one of the Agency's private jets.”

Katrina had been listening to the exchange with rapt attention. Agency? As in, CIA? What was going on? Why would the CIA be after Jack? Surely not for accidentally killing someone in an underground fighting match?

Jack said, “You should have known you'd never bring me in alive.”

“Then I'll bring you in dead.”

“I have hostages.”

At this Katrina stiffened. The whites of Zach's eyes grew wider. She glanced around the room. Their only chance of escape would
be down the hallway to the kitchen and out the back. But the door to the hallway was closed. There was no way she or Zach could get it open and flee through it before Jack picked them off with a bullet in their backs.

Silence reigned for what felt like an eternity. Then the man on the bullhorn said, “I'm coming in to talk to you, Jack. I'm unarmed.”

“I know how this works, Russ,” Jack said, stroking his ponytail. “I know you can't cut a deal.”

“What options do you have? The place is surrounded.”

“Maybe I'll just clean house now. Get it over with.”

Katrina took Zach's hand and squeezed it; he squeezed back. Her eyes fell on the limp form of Bandit, and she looked away.

“I just want to talk, Jack. Where's the harm in that?”