Hell for Leather Read online

  Chapter Nine

  “This little door-to-door operation we’re scheduled to begin in…” Mac watched Ozzie check the big, black Luminox watch on his wrist, “an hour or so would be a whole hell of a lot easier if we knew which residences were actually occupied.”

  Mac had convinced the group that it would be best to wait until oh-eight-hundred before going around and pounding on Cairo’s front doors in order to flash Theo’s and Charles’s DMV photos. In his experience, people didn’t take too kindly to strangers demanding answers from them before they’d had their first cup of morning joe. And given the…uh…self-styled hermits liable to still be inhabiting this defunct town? Well, he figured they’d appreciate that kind of intrusion even less.

  Can you say answering the door shotgun first, ladies and gents?

  And Mac, already a little cranky because he was experiencing the tiniest vestiges of the hangover-that-never-was—a bit of a headache and a craving for greasy cheeseburgers—not to mention the fact that the stitches in his side burned like holy hellfire, didn’t fancy the idea of adding buckshot to his current list of ailments.

  Delilah had put up a fight, anxious to charge ahead in the search for her uncle. But she’d finally admitted the logic of his decision to give it a couple of hours. And since she’d still been wearing the shirt stained with his blood, she’d decided to use that time to run up to the second-floor bathroom to grab a quick shower.

  Quick my ass…

  The water had been running for the last forty minutes. Not that Mac had been counting or anything…well, maybe he’d been counting a little bit. Forty-one minutes and sixteen seconds, to be precise. And he knew the water heater had to have disgorged its load by now, leaving nothing but frigid H²O pouring from the creaky old pipes. So, what in the world was she doing up there?

  Inexplicably and seemingly from nowhere, the image of Delilah, cold water sluicing down her heart-stopping curves and raising goose bumps on her pale skin, flashed like a strobe in front of his eyes. And why in the world his stupid-ass imagination picked this moment to conjure up a vision—fantasy?—of her with her arms raised and her luscious breasts lifted, he’d never know. Why in the world it would pick this second to show him a mental picture of those sweet, succulent peaks furled tightly against the chill, just begging for the comforting heat of a man’s tongue, his tongue, was quite beyond him. Why in the world it decided to go one step further and—

  Lord almighty! He blinked away the vision, turning to see if any of his teammates had noticed he’d once again popped a chubby big enough to whittle into a baseball bat. Thankfully, they hadn’t. Too busy, as they were, planning the day in the usual way…by trading insults and discussing the logistics of their next move. Which is what he should be doing, damnit, instead of fantasizing about Delilah, naked, pleasuring herself as she imagined that her hands were actually his hands…sliding over her body, kneading and stroking and—

  Oh, for Christ’s sake! What the hell is the matter with me?

  But he knew the answer. And the answer was That Woman. That Woman was what was the matter with him. Her and the fact that he’d spent too much time in her tempting company, too much time…touching her. And, now, like a true addict, he was jonesing for his next hit.

  “What do you think, Mac?” Ozzie asked.

  He blinked owlishly, looking around Sander’s orange Formica kitchen table at the expectant faces of his teammates, realizing he’d completely checked out—sayonara, and see ya later—of the conversation.

  “Uh, sorry.” He shook his head, running a hand back through his hair, grimacing when the move caused his stitches to pull. “I was…uh…I was distracted by the fact that Delilah’s been in that shower a long time.” He pointed to the stained and dusty popcorn ceiling above them. “Maybe something’s wrong. Should one of us go check on her?”

  Ozzie’s brow quirked right along with the corner of his mouth. “Are you volunteering? Got a little wet ’n’ wild in mind, do ya?”

  Yessir. Wet. Wild. And then some… “No, I’m just sayin’ that—”

  Before he could finish, the water shut off, the pipes groaning like an old man with achy bones.

  He blew out a relieved breath, frowning when he discovered all three of his teammates staring at him with various levels of amusement plastering their faces. “Oh, screw you guys,” he grumbled. “It’s not like we aren’t all worried about her after that scuffle back in her uncle’s house. And let’s not even touch on that breakdown of hers back at headquarters.”

  He still got a little queasy thinking back on how she’d been shaking and sobbing. And talk about something he never wanted to see again… A woman who usually had more guts than you could string a fence on breaking down and bawling? Holy crow, he would need brain bleach to scour that from the ol’ memory banks.

  “Sí, amigo,” Steady nodded, grinning. “But some of us are still able to concentrate on the mission at hand instead of the sexy, sweet-smelling mamacita upstairs.”

  “I am concentratin’ on the mission at hand,” he blustered, hating feeling as if he were the weak link here, unable to keep his head in the game because he was too busy being led around by Little Mac.

  “Okay, okay.” Steady nodded, lifting his hands as if to placate Mac. “So, then, what do you say to Ozzie’s suggestion?”

  Ozzie’s suggestion? Ozzie had a suggestion? Shit, shit, shit…

  Zoelner—bless him—seemed to see his predicament and decided to take pity on him. “Ozzie thinks I should call Chelsea and ask her if the CIA is willing to point one of their satellites at Cairo, scan for heat signatures to tell us which houses are currently inhabited. I say we’re better off not getting the spooks involved. They’re not the kind of people we want to be indebted to. Besides,” Zoelner said, turning to Ozzie as if a thought had just occurred to him, “can’t we just ask Delilah to hack back into the IRS and run a search on last year’s property taxes? See who’s paying what and where?”

  “Yeah.” Ozzie nodded. “But that’s not the most efficient way to do it.”

  “Screw efficiency,” Zoelner huffed. “And screw the CIA.”

  For the first time since the water clicked on upstairs, Mac felt like maybe, just maybe, all his synapses were firing in order. And as much as he hated admitting it this time or any other… “Ozzie’s right,” he said, grimacing when Zoelner swung on him, the guy’s expression all about the what happened to us former government stiffs sticking together? “People could still be payin’ property taxes on houses that are sittin’ empty. Or, people could be squattin’ in empty houses that haven’t had the taxes paid on them in years. The infrared scan would work better.” He made sure his tone was apologetic. Then he did Zoelner one better when he turned to Ozzie. “Couldn’t you just hijack the satellite feed? Do the deed yourself without gettin’ the spooks involved? Lord knows you’ve appropriated Eyes in the Sky before.”

  “Sure.” Ozzie smiled, before his expression turned into more of a snarl. “But in order to access Eyes in the Sky, I’d have to use BKI’s routing system, which we all know has been compromised. I’m not saying I couldn’t do it, but they’d know I was doing it. And since Zoelner’s friend is now our supposed liaison, I—”

  “She’s not my friend,” Zoelner interrupted. Something in his tone caused Mac to turn and study him curiously. What was the matter with his face? Why was it all red and blotchy and…hot damn, was Zoelner actually blushing?

  “Well, whatever she is,” Ozzie waved off Zoelner’s objection, ignorant of the fact that something was boiling just beneath the former agent’s surface, “she offered to help. I think this is one instance where we should take her up on it. I mean, geez, it’s just a quick infrared scan.”

  Mac watched the muscle on the left side of Zoelner’s jaw twitch, and part of him—the part that could totally understand not wanting to get another woman involved here, especially not one who seemed to have the same effect on Zoelner that Delilah had on him—almost told Ozzie, to hell
with it, just hijack the goddamned satellite. But the other part of him, the part he prided himself on, the professional part, knew the kid had a point. If the CIA was going to know they were using the satellite system anyway, and if they could do the deed more quickly and more efficiently, why not just let them do it? As an added bonus, it could work as a test, of sorts, to see just how well the spooks were willing to play in the whole “joint assistance” arena.

  “Is it that much of a problem for you?” he asked Zoelner.

  “No.” Zoelner frowned hard enough to strain a facial muscle. “It’s not a problem. I’d just rather not have to deal with Ch—” He stopped, forcing himself to take a deep breath before continuing. “With those folks.”

  Mac hadn’t missed Zoelner’s truncated slip-of-the-tongue. There was definitely some sort of history between Zoelner and this agent named Chelsea. “Look, man,” he placated, “this might be our opportunity to—”

  “Fuck it,” Zoelner spat viciously. “I’ll do it.”

  Mac opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, a thump sounded overhead followed by a strange moaning sound. And a handful of hours after he had his first heart attack, he experienced a second one…

  ***

  Beyond disappointed, and exhausted to the point of delusion apparently, Delilah spiked her phone into the orange shag carpeting and groaned her misery. Because the thought had occurred to her while she’d been in the shower that maybe her uncle had called. That maybe his disappearance had, indeed, been some kind of huge mistake. That maybe he and his old Marine buddy, Charlie, had gone somewhere to pull a Cheech and Chong, or else get their knobs polished—erp, she sooo didn’t want to picture that—and he’d awoken this morning to leave her a message explaining everything. The idea had taken such a hold on her while she’d been shampooing the highway from her hair, that she’d almost, almost convinced herself it was real.

  But after hastily pulling on a clean pair of jeans and her favorite T-shirt—the hot pink cotton read Asphalt Angel and had been washed so often it was soft as satin—she grabbed her iPhone only to find its screen glaringly blank. And even though Fido snored softly over in the corner of the small, dimly lit bedroom, sprawled on his back, legs bent and twitching as he chased rabbits in his dreams, the stark silence of her phone’s empty voice mail messages seemed to scream.

  Tossing the damp towel she’d been using to dry her hair to the floor, she collapsed onto the edge of the bed and cursed the tears that pricked behind her eyes.

  Don’t do it, she fiercely scolded herself. Don’t you give in, yet. Don’t you give up, yet.

  But to her utter humiliation, she couldn’t dispel the sense of helplessness, the sense of…hopelessness weighing her down like a lead anchor attached to her soul. And, then, as if things weren’t bad enough already, a vision of Buzzard in his last moments invaded her consciousness.

  So much blood…

  There’d been so much blood. Everywhere. All over the bar. All over the floor. And even though she’d had a team come in to scrub it away, even though everybody told her there weren’t any stains, every time she walked into the place she would swear she could still see it there, dripping from Buzzard’s usual stool, falling into a growing pool of red on the floor.

  To put it simply, what happened that afternoon…Buzzard’s death…it haunted her. And even though she’d moved his favorite song into permanent shuffle on the jukebox, even though she’d started serving shots of his customary whiskey at half price, even though she’d had a plaque with his name imbedded into the bar, even though she’d done everything she could think of to memorialize him, she was still…haunted. Her heart damn near threatening to burst anytime she was caught off guard, like now, with the memory of him.

  Would she soon be attending another funeral for someone she loved? Someone who’d still be here if not for her? Because no matter how hard she tried to convince herself otherwise, she couldn’t shake the idea that none of this would have happened if she’d been tough enough to get her shit together and get back behind the bar where she belonged, instead of using every excuse she could think of to avoid the place…i.e., encouraging her uncle to go on an impromptu road trip. Jesus, if not for her cajoling, Uncle Theo wouldn’t have taken Charlie up on his invitation for a visit, and he wouldn’t have gotten embroiled in whatever trouble Charlie Sander was obviously involved in.

  Throwing herself back on the blue and orange comforter, causing the bed’s rusty springs to squawk in complaint, she tossed an arm over her tear-hot eyes. And that’s when a strange thundering sound, almost like that of an earthquake, rumbled in her ears. It was immediately followed by the bedroom door flying open with such force the knob stuck solid in the sheetrock. She sprang upright—Fido doing the same, popping from his corner with a sleepy-eyed yorp—in time to see Mac lowering his biker boot from where he’d kicked the door open. He charged into the room in a fighter’s stance, his big, black Glock up and at the ready. The rest of the Knights piled in behind him, weapon’s drawn, faces like death masks in the dim light of the bedside lamp.

  “What the hell?” she gasped, a hand clutching her throat.

  “You okay?” Mac asked, quartering the room like a…well, like a pro, she supposed.

  “Of course I’m okay.” Although, in all honesty, that was pretty far from the truth.

  “We heard a thump,” Ozzie explained, holstering his weapon and bending to shake Fido’s paw. The dog, never having met a stranger and too silly to recognize the danger of four locked-and-loaded men, had wagged himself over to the group, thinking this was all some sort of hugely fun game. He was sitting and offering his front leg in greeting.

  “I…” Delilah had to swallow and try again. “I had this crazy idea when I was showering that Uncle Theo called and left a message.” She pointed a finger she was dismayed to note was shaking at the iPhone lying in the middle of the shag carpeting. “When I realized it was all in my head, I got a little…” Hopeless? Infuriated? Dismayed? Frustrated? All of the above? “…disappointed, and I spiked it into the ground.”

  “What about that groaning sound that followed?” Mac demanded, having shoved his gun into the small of his back and risen from his fighting stance. He crossed his arms over his chest, the gray of his T-shirt hugging his bulging biceps and pulling up just enough to show the bottom links of the barbed wire tattoos inked there. Now normally, she preferred a man when he was all decked out in a biker jacket. There was just something about the way the leather hung on a guy’s shoulders. But Mac? Well, suffice it to say, she liked him just as he was right now. Dressed in nothing but faded jeans and a too-tight T-shirt that accentuated the width of his chest, the slimness of his waist, and the flat expanse of his washboard belly. Yeah, there was just something about the sheer height and breadth of him that…well…it just did it for her. Did it for her every which way.

  Which just proved how delusional and exhausted she really was. Because the dead last thing she should be concerning herself with right now was the sorry state of her nonexistent sex life.

  Still…they had—she bent to retrieve her phone, pushing the power button and checking the time—about an hour before they were scheduled to start knocking on doors. And there had been that look on his face back at BKI headquarters when she’d accidently kissed him smack on the mouth, not to mention the honking big hard-on he’d popped out in the front yard. So maybe…yeah…maybe she should be concerning herself with her nonexistent sex life. Maybe that’s just what she needed to keep the helplessness and hopelessness from driving her shithouse crazy for the next hour.

  A plan began to take shape…

  ***

  “Delilah?” Mac asked worriedly. She was wearing a strange look. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

  “Huh?” she blinked up at him, her face even more beautiful scrubbed free of makeup, the deep red highlights in her damp auburn hair catching the glow from the lamp and burning like living fire. And then, Lord almighty, there was that
T-shirt. He’d swear it was thin enough to blow off in a stiff breeze, and it hugged her curves so lovingly that had she been braless he’d have been tempted to eat his own ammo.

  Of course, the swift kick to his libido was about as welcome as a porcupine at a nudist colony, because not only was he not changing his mind about getting involved with That Woman—he wasn’t—but he also felt like a complete cad for lusting after her when it was obvious she was bone-weary. As his dear ol’ dad had liked to say, she looked like she’d been chewed up, spit out, and stepped on.

  Poor little gal… Which reminded him…

  “We heard groaning,” he repeated.

  “Oh.” She shook her head, as if she needed the physical inducement to rearrange her thoughts. “That…uh…that was me, too. Just feeling a little beaten down by the…weight of it all, I guess.”

  And, yessir, that was enough to punch through his tough exterior straight to his soft, gooey center. Taking a deep breath, he gave her the only piece of advice he’d ever found to be one hundred percent true one hundred percent of the time. “Hard times don’t last, darlin’. But hard people do. You gotta hang tough.”

  Her throat made a clicking sound when she swallowed. And, damn it all, he hadn’t meant to make tears spring to her eyes, but that’s just what he’d done.

  “I’m…um…I’m going to go make that call to the CIA,” Zoelner said, fleeing the scene. The coward.

  “I’m going to…uh…feed the dog again,” Ozzie said, grabbing Fido’s collar and hauling the panting, wagging canine into the hall, proving that he, too, was yellow as mustard.

  Mac turned to lift a brow at Steady, wondering what his excuse might be. To his utter exasperation, the man didn’t even attempt to come up with a justification for his departure. He simply made an oh, shit face when he saw Delilah’s over-bright eyes and turned on his heel, escaping into the hall, slick as a whistle, pulling the door out of the sheetrock and closing it behind him.