To Die For

Chapter 185

The dog barked again.

Winding up, Jack kept his eye on his shadowy target, and then lifted a knee and threw the meat. Bingo. Within seconds the barking stopped and all they heard was rustling within a hedge.

"Throw another one," she said. "We don't want the same dog to eat all of them."

He repeated the process, watching each chunk of meat disappear between the rails. A dog yelped.

He still had it.

The last piece of meat hit iron and made a splat when it hit the driveway. "Can't win them all," he told Kate, but she had already taken a seat on the ground under an orange tree, her head resting against the base of the tree.

"Now we have to wait until the dogs fall asleep," she said.

"How long will that take?"

She shrugged. "I have no idea. I just hope we didn't kill any of them."

Jack slid down beside her and put his arm around her until her head rested in the crook of his arm. "The dogs will be fine, I promise."

He couldn't see her face, but he knew she was smiling.

"I wonder how A.J. and the kids are doing?" Kate asked. "And Barney..."

"Roger Cott couldn't have had enough time to get into the house before he stole the police car and came after us. Besides, if he had made it into the house, A.J. would have taken care of him. When A.J. is aimed and ready, he doesn't miss."

Silence stretched between them, both lost in their thoughts. Jack recalled once more the hollow emotionless look on his friend's face when A.J. had told him Becky was dead. "It seems the world has tilted on its axis," Jack said. "I've never felt such hopelessness."

"I have," she said, her voice as soft as the breeze rustling the leaves above his head.

He gave Kate a squeeze, wis.h.i.+ng he could make everything right, but knowing he was running out of time.

Kate came awake with a jolt. It was still dark. Thank G.o.d. She'd fallen asleep in Jack's arms. Using her pointer finger, she brushed her fingertip over his lips and smiled when he wrinkled his nose in his sleep.

Just like Barney, he was cute when he was asleep, but enough gawking, she decided. The sun would be rising within the hour. She shook Jack's shoulder until he opened his eyes.

"Come on," she said as she pushed herself from the ground. "Time to climb the fence. We probably don't have much time."

Jack snapped to attention and pushed himself to his feet. His legs felt incredibly stiff, as if he'd slept on a bed of nails. He rubbed his face and neck before he finally turned and headed for the fence where he'd thrown the meat last night.

Kate came up behind him.

Two dogs were out cold.

"What if they wake up?" he asked.

"Whatever you do, don't run."

They headed up the driveway to the section of the fence that was built of solid stone. Jack entwined his fingers and Kate put her left foot in his hands and let him push her to the top of the stone fence. Once she was stable, he jumped, caught his fingertips on the edge of the rough stone and pulled himself upward until he was high enough to swing his right knee over the top. Every muscle in his body ached as he swung his other leg to the top.

They took a quick breather before they jumped to the other side and landed on the gra.s.sy slope. Kate gestured for Jack to follow as she made her way across the lawn and around to the back of the house.

A motion light came on. "Hurry," she said, keeping close to the side of the house. She pointed to a large paned window. "That's Auntie's window. Bend down so I can climb onto your shoulders."

Jack looked upward to where she pointed. The window was ridiculously high. The sloping lawn didn't help matters. Jack did as she asked and didn't complain when she put one foot on his right shoulder and her other foot on his left. "Okay," she said. "You can stand up now."

"Your wish is my command."

Kate tapped on the window. Minutes felt like hours before the window slid open. Although he couldn't see them, he could hear two women talking and carrying on.

"Push me up," Kate said. Although the constant stream of orders were beginning to grate at his nerves, and he wondered why they weren't entering through the front door, he did as she asked, using his hands to push her feet higher and still higher until Kate managed to crawl through the window.

Looking upward, he waited for Kate to poke her head out the window and bark out another order, but instead, all he heard was a low familiar growl.

Apparently Kate's Auntie had three dogs, after all.

Slowly, an inch at a time, he turned around until he was facing the dog. He tried to think. He couldn't remember what "they" said about coming face to face with an angry dog. Look it in the eyes or don't look it in the eyes? If you ran into a bear you were supposed to make yourself look bigger than the bear, but dogs were different. For one thing, they weren't bears.

As soon as his eyes met the Doberman's, he knew he'd made a big mistake. The dog snarled, baring its sharp teeth as it did a little box-step forward.

"Uhmm...good dog."

The snarling turned nasty.

Jack looked slowly to his right. A four-foot fence surrounded the back yard, much smaller than the fence surrounding the property. He knew he couldn't outrun the dog, but he had a good chance of making it over that fence in a single bound.

"Jack," Kate said. "Are you still there?"

Too late. He'd already taken off. He made it to the fence in record time. So did the dog.

Jack jumped.

The dog did, too.

If he'd known Dobermans could jump that high, he never would have run for it. The pool was his last chance. Odds were the dog could swim, so he grabbed the pool brush with the heavy-duty aluminum pole instead, and swung around, hitting the dog's nose with the pole.

The Doberman

"That's enough, Jack!" a woman shouted from the house.

Jack didn't know why the lady was yelling at him, but he wasn't about to drop the pole.

"Jack!" the woman said again, clapping her hands together. Finally, the dog withdrew and scampered over to the woman's side, its tail tucked between its muscular hind legs.

"The dog's name is Jack," Kate explained from inside the safety of the house.

Jack put the pole aside after the woman disappeared around the back of the house with the dog. Although Kate wasn't smiling outwardly, he could see an amused gleam in her eyes as he approached.

"Sit down. Both of you," Auntie said.

Jack watched the woman Kate called Auntie skitter about the kitchen like a confused little mouse. It was almost comical watching Kate try to keep up with the woman, both trying to locate teacups and sugar cubes.

Clearly, Auntie wasn't used to playing host. Judging by the size of the house, and the expensive decor, she had maids and butlers to take care of details like serving tea.

Auntie was a pet.i.te woman with intense deep-set, blue-grey eyes, a thin straight nose, and high cheekbones. Despite being in her late fifties or early sixties, and having been awakened in the dead of the night, the woman looked well put together in a silk robe and matching headband that pulled back her thick dark hair and showed off rosy cheeks.

She pulled some sort of cake from the refrigerator and set out three plates and three forks.

Kate must have realized the woman wasn't going to slow down because Kate sighed and took a gentle hold of the woman's shoulders, forcing the woman to take a seat. "Auntie, we're fine. Sit for a moment, please, so I can talk to you."

Reluctantly, the woman sat across from Jack.

Kate took a seat next to her. "I know how hard this must be for you. I tried to call earlier in the day but your number was out of order. I didn't want to ring the bell because I knew you might panic and call the police."

The woman looked at Jack, averting her gaze when he looked her square in the eyes, unwilling to cower.

"We must call the police," Auntie said, her voice shrill. "This man is a criminal, a fugitive."

Kate stiffened. "I already told you, he's innocent. He's been set up and you're the only person left in the world who can help us."

The teakettle made a soft hiss on the stove.

"If you can't help us or you don't feel comfortable," Kate added, "I understand and we'll leave right now."

Auntie lifted her chin and turned toward Jack again. This time she held his gaze. Judging by the way she rubbed her hands together, she was nervous. He supposed her anxiety was warranted. Most people would be nervous to have a supposed killer in their midst. But something about the woman gave him the w.i.l.l.i.e.s. He knew he should say something calming to break the ice, let the woman know he wouldn't harm a flea, but something told him she knew that already.

"I will help you," the woman managed, her eyes still locked on Jack's as she talked to Kate. "Your mother and father meant the world to me, how could I not?"

Kate stood and kissed the woman on the cheek. "Thank you, Auntie. You won't regret it, I swear."

Kate placed a teabag in each of the three cups sitting on the table before adding hot water. As she poured the water, she made a face at Jack, wrinkling her brow and mouthing words he couldn't make out. He had a pretty good idea she was trying to get him to start a conversation with the woman, but he couldn't think of a thing to say.

Auntie made him feel uneasy. She looked harmless enough. Maybe it was the way her eyes looked fearful one moment and then angry the next, as if they'd messed up her plans in some way.

"Jack," Kate said, clearly exasperated. "Why don't you tell Auntie about the first time Agent Harrison spoke to you about leaving for Haiti...how you were promoted, then framed for the murder of Dr. Forstin."

"If you two don't mind," he said, pus.h.i.+ng away from the table and standing. "I could use a hot shower and a few hours of sleep. When I wake up," he said, his gaze still on Auntie, "I'll tell you anything you want to know."

Jack was drying himself with a towel when Kate joined him in the guestroom where Auntie had said they could sleep.

Kate plunked a hand on her hip. "What the h.e.l.l is the matter with you?"

He removed the towel from his waist and used it to dry his hair. When he finished, he looked at her.

It took her a moment to draw her gaze upward to his face.

He winked.

She crossed her arms tight against her chest. "What has gotten into you, Jack? Ever since you stepped into Auntie's house you've been acting like a jerk."

"I don't like her."

"That's it?"

"My instincts, those natural impulses you keep telling me to listen to, are screaming in my ear, telling me your Auntie is not who you think she is."

"Since when have you started using your instincts?"

"Tonight," he said, clearly agitated. "I started tonight."

"This is exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about. You don't sound like yourself. You had a perfect opportunity to make Auntie feel comfortable about having a wanted criminal in her house, but instead you made her nervous."

"My instincts also tell me it would take more than one man to scare your Auntie. She has nerves of steel. Just look into those icy cold eyes of hers."

"Keep your voice down," Kate said, gesturing toward the door. "She might hear you."

"What you sensed coming from Auntie was distaste, not distrust," he said. "I'm telling you that woman is not happy about the two of us making a surprise visit. There's something about her that's not all there. Something strange is going on here. Trust me."

"I was beginning to trust you, Jack. Now I don't know."

He shut off the lamp, climbed under the covers, and patted the other side of the bed. "Come on. Get in bed. If the police haven't dragged me to jail by morning, we can talk then. My eyelids feel like cement blocks. My body feels like it has been used as a punching bag. If you feel like talking go ahead. I'm all ears."

Ten seconds later, the only thing Kate heard was the steady sound of Jack's breathing. She went to her side of the bed, climbed on top of the mattress, and lay beside him. Turning toward him, she said, "I want to trust you, Jack." She placed her hand over his heart and wished things could be different. She didn't want to spend every minute on guard, every muscle tense, every nerve on alert. Ever since meeting Jack, she'd yearned for a gentler life where she would be free from fear of the unknown.

Her father would have liked Jack, she decided, as the steady beat of his heart lulled her to sleep.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR.

The sound of a chainsaw woke Jack with a start. He jumped out of bed. As the morning fog cleared from his head, he looked through the window and saw a team of gardeners at the side of the house, tr.i.m.m.i.n.g trees and hedges.

He hadn't been dragged to jail, after all. He could only hope that was a good thing. Where was Kate? he wondered. Judging by the dents in the mattress, both sides of the bed had been slept in. He retrieved his shorts from the tufted leather wing chair in the corner of the room, and slid them on. A full night's sleep had done him good...good enough to make him feel a wave of guilt at treating Kate's Auntie rudely. It made sense that the woman would be wary of him, that she wouldn't want a fugitive sleeping in her house. And yet, still, something about her niggled at the back of his mind. Auntie hadn't asked Kate one question about where she had been all these years. Neither did she appear bowled over at seeing a girl she supposedly thought was dead. If his sister walked into the room right now, his heart would stop beating, and if he survived the heart attack, he would gladly shake the hand of the fugitive who had brought her back and kept her safe. He would have a million questions, and he wouldn't be able to sleep until he had answers.

Auntie, on the other hand, hadn't seemed the least bit fazed that Kate showed up in the dead of night and was in her kitchen drinking tea.

As he moved toward the mirror hanging above the dresser, Jack looked around for his s.h.i.+rt. He ruffled his fingers through his hair. The room, he noticed in the morning light, was lavishly decorated with antique mahogany furniture, heavily carved framed mirrors, and a large marble-top dresser. The base of the bedside lamps were bronzed statues with a cherub and flower design. Although he wasn't an antique connoisseur by any means, he'd seen enough collectibles confiscated from homes of drug dealers and other criminals of great wealth to know an antique when he saw one. For someone who ran a nonprofit organization, the woman sure did live the good life. A gilt-framed picture of Auntie huddled up close with the Bush family sat on the dresser next to an impressive cobalt and bronze decorative urn. He couldn't help but wonder if there were ashes inside, but he really didn't want to know, so he didn't look. Another picture of Auntie with George Clooney hung on the wall next to the mirror. He picked up a decorative porcelain vase at the same time the door to the bedroom opened.

Jack set the vase down, relieved to see Kate looking well. Her hair was swept back out of her face and clipped in the back. She sported a brown form-fitting tracksuit with long sleeves and a drawstring waistband. She held a pile of folded clothing in her hands.

"You look great," he told her.

"Thanks. Auntie and I wear the same size. Did you sleep well?"



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