Saint/Sinner Read online

  “I don’t make stupid mistakes.”

  “First time for everything.”

  “Not with me.”

  Jack grunted. “Forget about them. For now, I need you to help Jerry look for the dog.”

  “I already did; couldn’t find it.”

  “There’s two of you this time.”

  Jones smirked, but didn’t argue. Instead, he looked past Jack and at Jerry. “You gonna bleed to death, or what?”

  Jerry had treated and wrapped his arm with gauze, and was putting the roll away. “I’ll be fine.”

  “Too bad. If you’d gone down, Jack and me would have been forced to split your share.”

  “Keep dreaming, sport.” He held his bandaged arm up and gave it a once-over in the light. “That dog better not have rabies.”

  “Don’t worry; if you start foaming at the mouth, I’ll put you out of your misery.”

  “Awfully nice of you.”

  “You feeling a little tightness in the throat area? What about your arm? Is it itching more than usual? I hear delirium and hallucinations are some of the symptoms of rabies. You feeling any of that right now, Jerry?”

  Jerry smirked, but didn’t say anything.

  “Enough chatter,” Jack said. “You’re wasting time while that dog is getting farther away.”

  “You need to relax; it’s just a dog,” Jones said.

  “Right, it’s just a dog,” Jack said. “So you shouldn’t have any problems finding it and putting it down, right?”

  *

  Jerry and Jones disappeared into woods until only the beams of their Maglites could be seen occasionally slicing across the blackness. The woods back here were thick with trees, with only a single dirt road leading from the nearest country highway—a long stretch of nothing, really—about two miles back. After that, it was a lot of green in the daylight and darkness at night only occasionally broken by splashes of moonlight that managed to pierce the canopies.

  When he couldn’t hear the two mercenaries anymore, Jack headed back to the house. He pulled out the burner cell phone and punched in the digits from memory.

  A voice answered on the second ring. “Are we still on schedule?”

  “Right on time,” Jack said.

  “Remember, it has to get done by morning.”

  “You sure it’s going to take that long?”

  “It shouldn’t, and it’s your job to make sure it doesn’t.”

  “By any means necessary?”

  “Up to a point.”

  “What if I have to go beyond that?”

  “Stick to the plan,” the client said. Then, “Any problems so far?”

  What didn’t you tell me about the woman? he thought about asking, but didn’t. He was selling not just expertise here, but also confidence.

  He said instead, “No. Everything’s moving according to schedule.”

  “No hiccups?”

  Just a dog on the loose in the woods, he thought, but said, “No.”

  “Good,” the client said. Then, almost as an afterthought, “Can I ask you a question?”

  “It’s your dime.”

  “Why the J’s?”

  He smiled. Everyone always asked that. “No reason, I just like the sound of J’s,” he said, opening the door and stepping into the foyer, his boots leaving thick dirt on the tiled floor. “The next time you get a call from this number, it’ll be me telling you everything’s done.”

  “I like the confidence,” the man said, before hanging up.

  Jack pocketed the phone and walked across the living room to the back door, peeking out at the patio deck outside the security glass, then at the walls of trees beyond. Unlike the front yard, the back only had a couple of lights, one above the door he was looking out now, and another along the back wall between the windows.

  He didn’t expect to see anyone out there, though for a moment Jack thought he might have caught a glimpse of something white moving around in the darkness among the trees. It was fleeting. There one second, then gone the next.

  “It was white. With brown fur,” Jerry had said.

  Jack scanned the woods, moving slowly from side to side, but there was nothing out there no matter how long he stared. After a while, he shook his head and headed into the bedroom hallway, where he stopped at the first door. It was padlocked, and he could hear voices on the other side. Jack listened for a moment, catching a few words here and there, including something about a “résumé.”

  He continued up the hallway, entering the second bedroom. The room was sparsely decorated and was clearly being used as an office. There was a single desk at the back with an all-in-one computer on top, a bookshelf, and a metal drawer. Jack sat down on the comfortable black chair and ignored the desktop, instead powering up the bulky laptop they had brought with them.

  He was watching the Microsoft Windows logo animating to life when there was a click in his right ear. He reached down and pressed the Push-to-Talk switch connected to the radio. “You found Lassie yet?”

  “It’s gone,” Jerry said through the earbud.

  “What do you mean, it’s gone?”

  “I mean, we can’t find it. There was a trail, but we lost it.”

  “It’s a dog,” Jack said, unable to hide his growing agitation. “Are you telling me a dog outsmarted you?”

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” Jerry said, sounding clearly offended. “It’s dark out here. Even with the flashlights, I can barely make out Jones’s ugly face.”

  “How far are you from the neighbor?”

  “Halfway?”

  “Can you try to be a little more confident?”

  “About halfway,” Jerry said. “Jones thinks it might have doubled back to the house.”

  “Maybe,” Jones cut in.

  “You sounded pretty sure before,” Jerry said.

  “Well, I’m not anymore,” Jones said. “But it’s a fucking dog. Who the hell knows what it’ll do.”

  Jack sighed. This was what he got for agreeing to work with strangers, guys he didn’t know from Adam until a week ago. He should never have agreed to the terms, but the money was so good and the lure of early retirement so tempting…

  “One time,” he remembered telling himself. “Just this one time. How bad could it be?”

  The money better be worth it, he thought, before saying, “Forget about the dog and get back here. This thing’s going to be over by morning anyway.”

  “What if it stumbles into one of the neighbors?” Jerry asked.

  “We’ll cross that bridge when and if we get to it.”

  “Roger that. Returning to the house now.”

  Jack leaned back in the chair, putting as much pressure on the furniture as he dared, though at the moment he didn’t care if it broke apart or tipped him over.

  Was he overthinking it again? Maybe Jones was right; it was just a dog, after all. How much trouble could a dog cause?

  He straightened back up and faced the laptop. It had finished booting and a blinking command prompt on a black screen stared at him.

  Time to get to work.

  Jack got up and walked next door.

  Chapter 3

  “What do they want?” Lucy asked.

  “I don’t know, sweetheart,” she said, and looked past the girl, at Walter sitting on the other side of Lucy.

  He was staring at the door intently, as if he could divine the answers to their predicament if he looked hard enough. She wanted to tell him there was no way out in that direction. Even if they could break the door down there were three men with guns on the other side. The only other route of escape was the back window, but it was secured with burglar bars.

  “Walter,” she said. When he didn’t react, or even appear to have heard her, she said louder, “Walter.”

  He finally glanced over, that look of confusion still easy to read on his face.

  “Who are they?” she asked.

  It took a few seconds for her question to get through to him, before he
finally answered, “What?”

  “Who are they?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  “They knew about the house.”

  “The house?”

  “The front door was still intact when we got here, remember? They didn’t break in, Walter. They knew enough to keep your alarm system online when we showed up. You had to disarm the front door to let us in. Remember?”

  He nodded slowly, and she could see his mind processing the information. But the fact that she’d had to tell him worried her, because she wasn’t going to be able to do this alone. She didn’t want to do this alone. She needed Walter because she couldn’t count on Lucy, who was still stuck to her chest, the girl’s body so tightly pressed against hers that Allie could hear and feel every shallow breath the teenager took.

  No, Lucy wasn’t going to be of much help tonight. That left Walter. But she needed the smart Walter, the one who ran his own department at the company, who could calculate the size of a tip to the cent before she could take out her phone to use the calculator app. What she didn’t need—or want—right now was this confused Walter who hadn’t even recognized that these men had been here this entire time, waiting for them.

  And they hadn’t come here for her or Lucy, but for him.

  “You’re right,” he said.

  “And you don’t know what they want with you?” she asked.

  He shook his head again.

  “Think, Walter.”

  “I’m trying…”

  “Try harder.”

  He sighed and looked back at the door. “I don’t know what they want. I don’t have a clue.”

  “Keep thinking; maybe it’ll come to you.”

  He nodded, though it clearly lacked conviction.

  Allie turned back to Lucy and pried the girl from her chest. “Hey.”

  Lucy glanced up, cheeks streaked with dry tears. Her eyes were red and puffy, and her hair was a mess and looked as if it hadn’t seen a comb in weeks.

  Allie brushed the teenager’s hair out of her eyes. “You okay?”

  Lucy shook her head, her lips quivering.

  “It’s okay,” Allie said. “We’ll be fine. Your father and I will figure this out, and we’re going to get through it.” She picked through the girl’s hair, noticing some dry blood at the roots. “Hurts?”

  Lucy shook her head, though she must have been reliving the memories, because she cringed a bit.

  “It’ll be okay,” Allie said again, as much for the girl as for herself. She would have liked to say it was for Walter, too, but he was already so focused on the door again that she didn’t think he would have heard her anyway.

  Lucy leaned back against her, and Allie tightened her grip around her thin body. Too thin. It was one of the very first things Allie noticed about the fifteen-year-old when they first met, and all their dinners together only reinforced that first impression. Lucy didn’t eat enough, and that was more evident than ever.

  “He knew your name,” Walter said.

  The sound of his voice surprised her, and she looked over. By the way he was staring back at her, she could tell that a new factoid had just occurred to him, and he was certain it was vital information. Walter was so easy to read.

  “How did he know your name?” Walter asked.

  “I’m guessing they did research on you,” she said. “Makes sense they’d know who you’re dating if they went through the trouble of knowing where you’d be this weekend and how to get past your home’s security.”

  “They knew about the vacation…” The gears were spinning again, new information being added. “You think this is work-related?”

  “I don’t know, Walter. Is it?”

  Again, that cloud of confusion. “I don’t know, Allie. I swear, I don’t know what’s happening here or why.”

  She nodded, believing him.

  Or, at least, she believed that he didn’t know. But the man named Jack (Yeah, right) hadn’t left any doubt that all of this was for Walter; she and Lucy just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  Suddenly, Lucy pulled away from her chest.

  “What is it?” Allie asked.

  “Apollo,” Lucy said. “Did you let him out of the car?”

  “No; I didn’t get the chance.”

  “You think he’s okay?”

  Allie smiled and nodded. “I’m sure he’s fine. I’m more worried about us.”

  Of the four of them, Apollo was the last one she was afraid for. Lucy and Walter had only seen the domesticated dog that lived in her apartment in the city, but Allie knew what he could do. What he could really do.

  “I didn’t hear any gunshots,” Walter said.

  “You wouldn’t,” Allie said. “They have suppressors on their weapons.”

  “Suppressors?”

  “What people call silencers in the movies.”

  “Oh.” Then, giving her an almost amused look, “How do you know that?”

  “I wasn’t always your secretary, Walter. I had another life before I went to work for Gorman and Smith.”

  “Something with guns? Dan showed me your résumé. I didn’t see anything with guns on it.”

  You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, she thought. And I don’t want to tell you. I don’t want to tell anyone.

  “It’s in the past,” she said instead.

  “Are you sure it doesn’t have anything to do with this? What’s happening tonight?”

  She shook her head. “It doesn’t.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. This is about you, Walter. This—whatever it is—is one-hundred percent about you.”

  “Maybe…”

  He drifted off again, this time his eyes downcast on the carpeting in front of them. She didn’t know what he was looking at. If there were no answers at the door, there were even less chances of an answer popping out of the carpet.

  “Walter,” she said, injecting just the right amount of emphasis to get his attention.

  “What?” he said, turning back to her.

  They were only a few feet apart, with just Lucy between them, but he looked distant, lost among the wallpaper behind him.

  “We have to get out of here,” she said.

  “I know that.”

  “No, Walter, you don’t understand; we have to get out of here.”

  She held his eyes, hoping he would understand. She didn’t want to say it out loud, didn’t want Lucy to hear. The girl was already terrified; Allie didn’t need her paralyzed with fear of impending death, too.

  Do you see it, Walter? she wanted to ask him. Do you see it?

  Finally, he nodded. “I know,” he said quietly.

  She sighed with relief, but it didn’t last long, because she heard the padlock on the other side of the door jingling. Lucy tensed against her and she had every right to, because the door opened a moment later, and Jack stood in the open frame.

  “Time to go to work,” he said.

  Chapter 4

  The woman was staring at him in a way that unnerved Jack as he stepped into the room, but he didn’t let it show on his face—or, at least, he didn’t think he did—and said, “Time to go to work.”

  She sat against the far wall, the teenager in her lap. The man sat next to them, and he tensed noticeably as Jack entered the room and rested his hand on the butt of his holstered sidearm. It wasn’t exactly the most subtle of moves, but Jack was aiming for effectiveness.

  “What do you want?” the woman asked.

  He ignored her question and pointed at Walter. “You. Come with me.”

  “Why?” Walter stammered.

  “Don’t make me tell you twice,” Jack said. While the man staggered to his feet, Jack fixed the woman with a hard look. “I’m leaving your arms and legs free as a sign of good faith. Make me regret it, and I’ll have both of you tied up and gagged. Understand?”

  “That’s very decent of you,” the woman, Allie, said.

  He smirked. �
��You’re his secretary, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You don’t look like a secretary.”

  “What’s a secretary look like?”

  “Not like you.”

  “Maybe you just haven’t been around enough secretaries,” she said. “You don’t strike me as someone who spends a lot of time in offices…Jack.”

  He smiled. Of course she knew his real name wasn’t Jack. A woman like her…

  Which was what, exactly?

  Jack flipped through what he remembered of the woman’s file in his head. It wasn’t much, just a couple pages including a list of surviving family members (none) and jobs (probably more than the average early-thirty-something, but nothing that really stood out), and the last year at Gorman and Smith as an executive assistant for one of the higher-ups. Dan something. There was nothing about her life that had set off any alarms, to him or the client; or, at least, nothing that would explain why she wasn’t more afraid of him or what was happening to her at the moment.

  And that, more than anything, disturbed him.

  He knew a problem when he saw one, and Allie Krycek was giving off all the signs of a troublemaker. The smart thing would be to remove her now before he was proven right, but he couldn’t do that. Not yet. There was a chance—a small one, but a chance nonetheless—that Walter might not cooperate the way they needed him to. When that happened, they’d need incentives. Like a daughter…or a girlfriend. He could make do with just the daughter, but why settle for one when he had the option of two? If one insurance policy was good, two was better.

  Still, maybe he was making a mistake. This woman, staring back at him right now without an ounce of fear, might be more trouble than she was worth.

  Or was he overthinking things again?

  “Come on,” Jack said, and beckoned for Walter to move faster across the room—the man kept looking back at Allie and the girl, Lucy. “They’ll still be here when you get back.”

  “What do you want with me?” Walter asked.

  “You’ll find out soon enough.”

  “I want to know—”

  Walter was close enough that when he got the word “know” out, Jack was able to lean into the punch, sinking a balled fist into the other man’s gut.