‘Who did this to you?’ she finally asked, digging blood out of his nose with a Q-tip. ‘You can’t keep me in the dark like this.’
‘Somebody I wasn’t expecting,’ he said, staring into space.
She paused. Took his head in her hands. Made eye contact. ‘Jason, what’s going on?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, struggling to control his emotions. ‘I honestly have no fucking idea. A man I used to work with showed up here. I hadn’t seen him in five years, and he’s here. Ten thousand miles from where he’s supposed to be. He tried to kill me.’
She went pale. The news hit her, too. The understanding that all the killings, all the violence, all the death… revolved around him.
‘You told me you were just passing through,’ she said, stunned.
King looked at her, tears welling in his eyes. ‘I am. That’s why I’m so scared now. I quit my position a couple of months ago. Travelled here, to get away from it all. No phone, no computer. I fell off the grid. And all this chaos still followed me.’
‘But…’
‘You should leave, Kate.’
She sat on his bare thigh and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. He held her tight. Thinking it might be the last time he ever would.
‘I’m not just abandoning you,’ she whispered.
‘This is on me. I’m being targeted. You need to get yourself as far away from me as possible. I knew I never should have let you get close.’
‘They tried to kill me, too. You’re not the only person being targeted.’
‘I remember thinking the shooter at the landfill site had to be an awfully well-trained marksman to be so accurate. Now I know that he was. Because I trained with him.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘Dead.’
No need to elaborate.
She bowed her head. ‘So you didn’t find out anything else? All we have is Rafael Constructions?’
He nodded. ‘That’s it.’
‘Then we go check it out,’ she said. ‘I’m not just running away from Jameson because it’s somehow connected to you. You’ve saved my life at least twice now.’
‘I’m not someone you want to be around, Kate.’
‘I think you are.’
There was a brief pause as neither of them spoke. They looked at each other for a long time. Wondering just how they’d got each other into this mess. Wondering if it would end. Kate kissed him. Her hair spilled over his shoulders and they stayed that way for what felt like forever, moving slowly against each other, feeding off each other’s energy. King stood up, carrying her, and they fell onto the bed. They moved gently. Carefully. Kate slid her pants off, revealing the same toned physique, and together they crept under the covers once again. King felt the elation and the joy and the release of the experience and in that time he believed that there was a way out of this horrendous situation. They would find answers, they would leave Jameson behind, they would move on. He would finally rid himself of the demons of his past, and they could just disappear together.
The morning melted into a blur of pulsating colours, of motion and energy and connection. When they finally finished King drifted into a half-sleep, staring up at the ceiling until it faded away, one hand around Kate’s slight shoulders, breathing in her smell. He put the tension and the stress and the pain on hold. Just for a few short hours.
When he came to around mid-morning, he heard the rare sound of a passing vehicle. Its engine grumbled by. Then, all of a sudden, the noise came to a halt. Right in front of the motel. There was a car stopped outside. He was sure of it. He stayed completely still in bed, but his senses perked up. He listened for any type of uncommon noise. In all likelihood it would be nothing more than a local, stopped for any of the million reasons why people stop their cars.
But maybe, just maybe…
Then the window shattered.
In the calm silence of the mid-afternoon the sound exploded through the motel room like a gun. King threw the covers away and leapt out of bed the moment he heard it. He shut off the nerve endings screaming at him to slow down. He wouldn’t listen to them, because he had just seen the object that had launched through the window. A small round ball, heavy. It thudded into the carpeted floor and rolled toward the bed.
He couldn’t believe his eyes.
A military-issue M67 hand grenade.
Pin missing.
Acting with the urgency of a man who knew exactly how much danger he was in, King scooped up the grenade with one hand and took an enormous bounding step toward the broken window. Before Kate had even propped herself up in bed he threw it like a baseball, knowing it would detonate at any moment. He’d thrown it blind, hurling it back from where it came from before he even had a chance to scout the area.
He made it to the window before the detonation. Got one look at the scene before him. A police car, from the Jameson Police Department, resting idly in the middle of the road. A single man standing by the driver’s side door, staring up at the motel. King saw the slick hair, the white skin, the large eyes.
It was Brandt’s imposter. He must have escaped from the station, stealing one of their vehicles in the process. Then he’d tracked King down and hurled a live grenade into his motel room.
And he certainly hadn’t anticipated the same weapon hurtling back at him barely a couple of seconds later.
He didn’t stand a chance.
The grenade bounced once on the asphalt, skidding along the road until it shot under the police car. The imposter could do nothing but stare. His reaction speed was not quick enough. From the time King threw the grenade, the man had perhaps a second to act. He didn’t take the opportunity.
A vicious explosion tore the police car in half. There was no fireball, no theatrics like in the movies. Just an immense blast that sent loose parts flying in all directions. The imposter became a bloody, shredded corpse. At the same time the blast shattered every window in Yvonne’s motel simultaneously. The noise almost destroyed King’s eardrums. He ducked below the windowsill to escape the shockwave. The room’s foundations shook around him. M67 detonations were close to the most terrifying experience on the battlefield, especially within such close proximity.
In a small country town, they caused pandemonium.
CHAPTER 24
The surrounding area erupted into bedlam. Screams of shock sounded from all levels of the motel complex as the entire building vibrated on its foundations.
Kate scrambled out of bed and threw her clothes on, her motions jerky and panicked. King followed suit, diving into the outfit she had bought him earlier that morning. A pair of jeans and a long-sleeved cotton shirt. Both tight fits. They gathered their things, speechless, reeling from how close they had come to getting blown to pieces. He sensed that she was unsure as to what exactly had happened.
‘What’s going on?’ she said finally, scooping up her bag, ready to leave.
‘Someone just threw a grenade through our window.’
Her eyes boggled. ‘Was that what it was?’
He nodded. ‘Let’s go. Right now.’
They threw the door open and headed out into the street. On the way to Billy’s sedan they passed Yvonne. The old woman had staggered out of reception, tears in her eyes, staring vacantly at the widespread destruction across her motel. Repairs would be expensive. King took one look at her, then reached into the windbreaker he carried in one arm and took out the remaining stack of bills from the biker’s clubhouse. At least ten grand, maybe more. He peeled off a couple to get them through the next few days, then handed the rest over to Yvonne.
She met his gaze. ‘What’s this for? Did you do this?’