After a moment’s hesitation where he swallowed a lump of shame, he lifted his pants leg. “I kill with this blade.” The damn thing gave off a green glow.
She gasped. “It’s ...?”
“Cursed? Yes, along with me. Due to the knife’s call, there will come a point where I can no longer resist the urge to kill a criminal. Jerahmeel, through the blade, forces me to track down and destroy dark souls. The knife leads me to the worst criminals.”
“Well, that makes murder a-okay then, right?” The ocean blue of her eyes turned flat, suspicious, and her disbelief cut him more surely than any metal weapon ever could.
He struggled to recover. “No, you don’t understand. It’s not bad enough that I have to kill. What scares me is that at some point, I’ll have to leave you to perform my ... job. I won’t have a choice. That’s when you’ll be most vulnerable.”
“I’m sure I’ll manage.” The brave face she mustered scared him more than her fear.
“It gets worse. If Jerahmeel finds out I have an attachment to any human, he will try to interfere, if only to keep me focused on doing his work.”
“Interfere?”
“Destroy you.” He let the words drop like two bricks.
“Oh.”
“Yes. Oh.”
“But you will live for hundreds more years?”
He hesitated. “Yes.”
She pressed her lips into an unhappy line. “So a long-term relationship for you is really long term, then?”
“What?”
Anger glinting in her fierce expression shifted into a ghost of a smile. “Well, damn it all. Isn’t this just fabulous?”
“Come again?” The hard set to her jaw worried him.
A wry lift to the corner of her mouth gave him a flicker of hope. “How perfect are we? I should be declared insane. You’ve got a story that will seal my commitment to the asylum if I ever tell it. Perfect.”
“You’re not horrified?”
Her high-pitched laugh came out weak, strained. “Yeah, I’m pretty creeped out right now. It’s not every day I hang out with a cold-blooded killer. Hold on, that’s not true if you count the past year of my life. Could be the company I’m keeping.”
When he shifted, she flinched, and he cursed himself all over again.
“I won’t hurt you, I swear.” He wanted to touch her, convince her of his sincerity, make her forget the horrors she’d survived. Make her forget the horror that he represented.
“You won’t hurt me? Ha. See, that’s the only part of this cock-and-bull story that I completely believe.” She dropped her head into her hands.
“It’s true.” He studied her hunched shoulders. “Why aren’t you running away from me?”
She propped her chin on her fisted hand. “First, I can’t get away. Not yet. Second, you are judged by your actions, not your history.”
“Pardon?”
“We both have pasts that are better left hidden.” She held up a hand at his protest. “So, in Saigon, were you Indebted then?”
“Yes.”
“What were you doing there?”
“Getting easy kills.” In for a penny. “And trying to find an ancient text rumored to have the knowledge to free me from this life.”
Her amazed expression opened like the petals of a flower. “Really? You were trying to stop being what you are?”
“Wouldn’t you?”
“Well ... yeah, probably.” She shook her head. “So you had extra strength then?”
“Yes, part of my curse means that it’s particularly hard for me to be killed, which is a bonus in a war zone.”
“Makes sense. So why did you stay with me in the closet? Why didn’t you attack that guy and take him out? Or escape?”
“Because I couldn’t risk you being hurt.”
She bit her lower lip. “What about that promise on the roof to find me?”
“I failed. If I hadn’t done what I promised, you might not have suffered.”
“I’m sure you had your own life to lead.”
“You truly want to know what I was doing between Saigon and now?”
“Yes.”
“Nothing, all right?” he spat. “I was doing nothing except killing criminals because I’m not strong enough to resist the knife’s call. I have nothing to show for the past six years.”
Turning her palms up, she said, “It’s not your job to save me, Barnaby.”
“By the gods above, it is, when I’m the cause of your danger.” He consciously relaxed his fisted hands when she scooted back. “A true man keeps his promise. There’s no way I can atone for what happened to you. Even if we had a future ...”
“Even if we had a future, it’s gone now, right?” Pointing to her chest, she added, “Because we can’t ... because ... yeah.”
“No! That’s not what I mean.”
She wrapped her hands over each upper arm. “Don’t lie on my account. I know the score. I know what’s happened to me. I’m not fit for anyone’s future.”
“That’s not what I’m saying at all.” How had he lost all control of this conversation? She wasn’t the problem. Not even close.
“Bull.”
“Please.”
Between her tear-filled eyes and the pulse pounding at her neck, he didn’t know how to help. A red flush crept over her neck, and she laced her fingers together, as if by doing so she could hold herself together.
Her chin rose. “Look, I’d love to storm out and go for a long walk to process all this craziness, but my stupid legs aren’t working enough to get more than fifty feet into the wilderness on account of fallout from my bad workplace decisions, the miscarriage of a cult leader’s baby, and forced tranquilizer use. So I’m going to have to ask you to leave me alone for a while.”
“Jane ...”
“You say you’re jonesing for a kill. Why don’t you go get it?” The ice in her voice chilled his skin.
“What?”
“Put your money where your mouth is. Get out. Please.”
“Does it count that this is my cabin?”
Like a vase shattering, she burst into tears.
Coward that he was, Barnaby fled.
• • •
Jane’s wretched day only got worse when night started to fall and there was no sign of Barnaby.
Since she had used up her quota of walking by pacing, she now lolled on the couch in her ill-fitting tracksuit, exhausted. Way too many trips to the front window and back, combined with her battered heart, had left her spent in body and spirit.
Oh my God, she’d kicked Barnaby out of his own house. Told him to go and do the thing that disturbed her most about him.
Why was she scared? He’d never hurt her, right?
So what if he’d sacrificed his entire existence years ago to save flippin’ Elizabeth, Queen of England. Maybe he could get sainthood.
Sure, he had protected Jane in Saigon, and then he’d rescued her from the hellish psych ward.
Then he upended his entire life and helped her to heal, waiting on her hand and foot, and allowing her to regain her strength.
She wasn’t scared of Barnaby.
Jane was scared of herself, scared that she might never deserve a life with a good man. A man who put others ahead of himself.
Nasty self-contempt rattled against her ribs.
God, look what she’d done, in the name of her job.
What right did she have to judge him?
The crunch of gravel and the flash of headlights made her heart jump in her chest.
She steeled herself to give Barnaby the apology he deserved.
A car door slammed.
All right. She took a deep breath.
Then a second door slammed, and a third.
At the fourth door slam, fear drove her to her feet next to the couch.
Male voices filtered through the walls.
A shadow flickered across the front window, followed by a harsh flashlight beam that pierced the interior of the cabin.
She dove to the floor.
Maybe it was the police?
Maybe monkeys would fly out of her butt.
At a rap on the door, she jumped.
“... said she’d be in here,” a male voice growled.
A more tenor-voiced man replied, “The girl at the store said he drove off by himself ... your woman’s got to be in the cabin.”
“Then get in there and find her.”
“We don’t know she’s here for sure. It’s breaking and entering.”
“Like I care about that shit? I want her ass here. Now. Dig it?” She knew that growling voice. Sweat beaded her upper lip.
“Roger, boss.”
At the first heavy thud against the door, she scanned the cabin for an escape route.
One way in and out through the front door, unless she counted the porch. Suspended at least twenty feet above the steep mountainside below, the porch wouldn’t work. Too weak to climb down the angled cantilevered supports and drop to the ground, she had run out of options in record time.
The thuds stopped.
She crawled to the bedroom.
How about the small closet? No. Someone would look there for sure. Her only chance was to convince them no one was home.
A crash of glass from the front window sent shards of dread slicing through her nerves.
Dragging herself under the bed, she edged toward the wall as footsteps came closer. She curled into a ball, hugging her knees to her chest.
The overhead light came on.
With a familiar clomp, a pair of tan Dingos scuffed to a halt at the end of the bed.
A second set of shoes, worn loafers, stopped about four feet away from Jane, next to the chair Barnaby sat in while she slept. Her heart rate cranked into high gear.
“Jesus, when I get my hands on that woman, she’ll be sorry, that’s all I can say.”
Thumps and crashes from the kitchen and living room bore testament to the destruction of Barnaby’s cabin retreat. Somehow, she’d pay for the damage. Only right, since Thompson and his buddies would never have come here if it weren’t for Jane and her failed mission.
God, how she’d failed.
The loafers pivoted ninety degrees away from her hiding place.
Then the bedside lamp shattered, tiny pieces of glass skidding under the bed.
With a crunch on the ruined material, the loafers moved away.
Silence.
Maybe they’d left.
Out of the corner of her eye, the buckles on the damned Dingo boots glinted as they came to a stop on the other side of the bed.
Sweat dripped down her forehead, and she bit her fist to keep quiet.
“Hello, lost little dove.” Thompson’s voice vibrated with barely contained fury.
Before she could turn, her head jerked as Thompson dragged her by her hair from under the bed. Glass scored her arms. Pain blasted from her scalp as he pulled her to a sitting position.
“Get up,” Thompson said in a too-calm-to-be-believed tone.
His heavy, sweaty face looming over her. Same man, same cruelty.
On tottering legs, she stood up against the closet door, using the handle for support.
Dusty loafers, that other jerk, chuckled from behind Thompson’s shoulder.
Two other men hovered in the doorway of the bedroom.
The DEA did not have a training module for this scenario.
Because there was no solution.
A strange calm settled over Jane. All her struggle to find a purpose in this crazy world. It had all been for nothing.
Poor Barnaby. He’d rescued her only to postpone the inevitable outcome.
A metal click grabbed her attention. Thompson pointed a black Magnum at her.
Well, this was going to hurt.
Her legs shook. They wouldn’t hold her for long.
Probably didn’t need much time anyway. Still, a perverse instinct to stall the unavoidable took over.
“Why are you doing this, Thompson?” she asked.
“You know too much.” He licked those damp lips that previously had been all over her.
She shuddered. “No one would believe me, with as many drugs as were in my system. So why all the trouble?”
“Who wants to take a chance with a narc?”
“I’m not—”
“Shut up. Your boss, Howard, and I are business partners. I know what you are.”
Confirmation of her fears nailed her between the eyes. “Please, I—”
“Don’t care. You’re done.” He motioned dusty loafers over and handed him the gun. “Actually, you do it. I don’t want any blood on my hands.”
“What harm could another drop do?” Devil made her ask. She had a serious case of the don’t-cares.
Thompson snatched the gun back himself and leveled it at her head.
The world exploded.