Chapter Thirty-Seven

Frank’s mind worked a beat slower than Otter’s. He was still trying to register that this wasn’t Hunter, when Otter asked, "Who are you?"

The flashlight moved back to Otter. "I’ll ask the questions. Where’s Hunter?"

"Through that door," Otter said, nodding in that direction. What a break! "Probably won’t be back for a while," he offered.

The flashlight beam found the steel door and security panel. The woman walked over to it.

Now that the flashlight was out of their eyes, Frank and Otter were able to see the woman clearer in the light provided by the twin bulbs on the generator.

She was short, probably 5’3" or so, but they couldn’t tell much else about her. She was dressed all in black, her head encased in a balaclava. Her body was clad in a one-piece insulated snowsuit that made it hard to judge what her figure might look like under all that padding, but she seemed diminutive.

The two men looked at each other. Otter had a hopeful expression on his face; Frank still seemed in disbelief. Then they looked back at her.

She shined the flashlight all around the room, taking everything in, looking carefully up and down all the walls and in all the corners. "Does she have security cameras?" she asked without looking at them.

"Yeah, there’s one outside that door you just came through," Otter said. The main entrance was still open and it was getting very cold in the generator room, but the woman seemed not to notice or care. "And there’s one on the other side of that door as well," he added, indicating the steel door to the tunnel with another nod of his head.

Otter wasn’t absolutely certain of that, of course; he’d been unconscious when he was brought through that door into this room. But he thought it looked just like the steel door he’d seen when he was inside the tunnel, so he was pretty sure that was all there was to the bunker.

He had the woman’s full attention. She stepped toward him. "What else is on the other side of that door, hmm?"

"A tunnel. It connects this room to the house part. A big room with a bedroom and a bathroom off it. And a pantry," Otter added, flinching slightly as he recalled the whacks his head had taken.

"Alarm system?"

"Don’t think it’s on if there is one," Otter said. "I haven’t heard any alarms." He looked toward Frank for confirmation.

The woman’s eyes followed his, and she too stared at Frank.

Frank shook his head. "Me neither."

"Anything else?" the woman asked.

"There’s another entrance to the place," Otter answered. "It goes up out of the tunnel, up to a hatch."

The woman returned to the security panel.

"Hunter carries a gun. She was wearing it in the back of her jeans," Otter supplied next. "And there may be someone else in there with her."

The woman turned to look at him again.

"You working for Garner?" Otter asked her.

"I ask the questions," she reminded him. "Who’s in there with her?"

"A woman named Scout," Otter said. "Another bounty hunter. We followed her out here. She may be dead, we don’t know. Or she may be in there."

"You say you followed this Scout? Explain that," the woman said.

"Well, her car crashed on a road a few miles from here. We followed some tracks from there to here."

"What kind of car? How did you find it?" she asked.

"It was a dark sedan," Otter replied. "I forget the model. We were following a homing device that was in her cell phone. It led us to the crash site."

The woman turned her attention back to the security panel. "I don’t suppose you’ve managed to see what code she uses to get through this door, have you?"

"No," Otter said. "She’s pretty careful."

The woman continued to examine the keypad. "So what happened to you two?"

Otter didn’t answer for a moment. "I got in the other entrance and was going to ambush her. She cut the lights and I couldn’t see a damn thing in there. She snuck up on me and knocked me out."

The flashlight swung from the security panel toward Frank, seeking his answer.

"She jumped me outside."

The beam returned to study the panel.

"Hey, how about helping us get out of these," Otter asked, rattling his handcuffs and the chain connecting him to Frank. "We can all jump her when she comes back to feed us. Make it fast and easy, split the money." He had no doubt this woman was another bounty hunter out to collect on Garner’s contract. A million split three ways would still be a hell of a payoff.

The woman laughed. No, she cackled. "Make it fast? Easy? Now why in the world would I want to do that?"

The tone in her voice stopped Otter cold. There was something about this woman that wasn’t... quite... right. "You want to do this alone, that’s cool. But how about helping us first? You know--I did you a favor, you do me a favor?"

The woman came over to stand in front of him. She crouched down, her face inches from his. "But I’ve already done you a favor." She smiled. It was a smile absent any warmth at all. A crocodile smile. "I’m letting you live."

She rose from her crouch and went back to the steel door, dismissing any further consideration of the two men in the corner.

Jake was long past conscious thought. Her body had taken over, and she had surrendered completely to the incredible sensations that were flooding her senses. Her skin was hypersensitive along the path that Kat’s fingers were tracing. They had slipped beneath the oversized sweatshirt Jake had on and were slowly exploring her stomach and side. Every now and then they would stray to tease the curve of her breast. Jake’s desire swelled until the anticipation was excruciating. Her tongue and lips pressed harder against Kat’s while her hand tugged at Kat’s shirt, pulling it from her jeans.

Kat was lost in her own sensual haze. Every nerve ending was on fire. She had never felt so incredibly aroused. Her previous sexual encounters had not prepared her for this. Her heart was pounding so hard she could feel it in her ears. A rush of blood coursed through her like liquid fire. When Jake’s hand slid beneath her shirt and skimmed lightly across her already erect nipple, she could not suppress a moan of pleasure.

"Well, isn’t this cozy," a high, feminine voice interrupted from the bedroom doorway.

Jake and Kat broke apart to look toward the door. Kat had her back to it. She turned, slowly, until she was facing the intruder. She shifted her weight so that her body would act as a shield between Jake and the new threat.

"Katarzyna Demetrious. At last." A woman dressed all in black held a gun on them. She leaned against the door frame as if she’d been watching them for a while. "I’ve been dreaming about this moment for a long time." She had shoulder-length, curly blond hair, matted down after its long confinement under the balaclava. She was an attractive woman, but with a detached cruelty in her eyes that Kat recognized.

Kat had not heard her full name in so many years it stunned her momentarily into inaction.

"Before we get acquainted," the woman said, taking slow steps toward the bed, "let’s have your gun. Left hand. Very slowly." She kept her 9mm handgun pointed at Kat’s head as she advanced to the end of the bed, keeping well out of Kat’s reach.

Kat’s hand moved slowly behind her and pulled her Glock out of her jeans. She tossed it on the bed near the intruder. The woman picked it up and shoved it into a pocket of her snowsuit.

During the millisecond the woman looked away, Kat’s eyes darted toward the pillow that had concealed her loaded.38. Jake had moved it! She had rearranged the pillows to prop herself up to read. Kat had no idea where the gun was now.

"Good girl," the stranger said. She backed up a few steps to put a little more distance between them. She motioned Kat off the bed with the gun in her hand.

Kat hesitated.

The woman calmly cocked the 9mm.

Kat reluctantly complied, easing off the edge of the bed with a glance back toward Jake.

Jake’s mouth was open, her eyes wide, staring in absolute horror at the woman who held them at gunpoint. She was breathing so fast, she was nearly hyperventilating.

Panic attack, Kat thought, unconsciously moving toward Jake to help her.

"Don’t," the intruder warned, taking a step toward Kat with her arm outstretched at shoulder level. Her eyes focused through the sights on the gun on the center of Kat’s forehead. She moved amazingly fast.

Kat froze.

The woman kept the gun trained on Kat, but she turned her head slightly to really look at Jake for the first time. "My, my. It is a small world, now, isn’t it? You created quite a few problems for me, you know. It’s been a while since I had to hot-wire a car, and I didn’t appreciate losing my rifle. But now you’re here, and I can take care of both of you at once." She laughed, shaking her head in disbelief at her good fortune. "Goody goody. Must be my lucky day."

Kat’s mind worked furiously to try to comprehend what was going on. This woman had gotten in and snuck up on them. Kat had thought that impossible. She is obviously a bit crazy and she knows who I am. And who Jake is, too, evidently. Kat looked at Jake.

Jake still hadn’t moved. She was gripped in a private terror, her eyes glued to the intruder. She had an almost glazed expression on her face.

"She doesn’t seem to be doing real well," the intruder observed, glancing from Jake to Kat and back again. "Missing hubby all of a sudden?"

That finally brought a reaction from Jake, though not one that anyone expected. Frozen one moment, a blur of motion the next, she suddenly had Kat’s.38 in her hand. She pointed it at the intruder.

"You killed him!" she screamed, tears running down her face. The hand holding the gun trembled slightly.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-30