Hittin It: A Hitman Romance (Marked for Love Book 2) (12 page)

“Fine. Where are you?” Was followed by something that sounded suspiciously like dickhead.

Will told him, filling him in on everything but the fact he’d had sex with Sabrina. He’d
definitely
never hear the end of that.

“Why didn’t you just let her go?”

“They would have killed her!”

“Not your problem.”

Will didn’t agree but kept his mouth shut. Arguing with John, who had to have the last word, was an exercise in futility.

“So how’d she get away?”

“I was sleeping,” he lied.

John snorted again.

“I called Wynn, but he wasn’t home.”
You’re my second choice
went unsaid.

“You didn’t try Danielle,” John said, referring to their baby sister.

“Don’t be an ass. Are you going to come get me or not?”

“Of course. Now call Mom.” John hung up before Will had a chance to thank him. Not that he was feeling especially thankful. He had hours and hours and hours to kill...at least six or seven. Despite his anger, he was worried for Sabrina, and he had no radio to break the monotony of what was going to be a very long day.

Will checked his cell phone and discovered four missed calls from his mother. It was a wonder he didn’t have more.
Lots more.
She usually restrained herself when she knew he was working but once a job was over, well, she turned into a typical mother hen again worrying about her chicks.

He cleared his throat, hoping he sounded normal. “Hi, Mom.”

“Willie! Where on God’s green earth have you been?”

“My phone was dead. I just now found it.” Another reason he hated lying. His mother could sniff them out like that cartoon bear sniffed out picnic baskets. The one with the friend named BooBoo.

She sighed loud and heavy in his ear. “
That woman’s
been calling here.”

“What?” He didn’t have to ask who.
Why
would have been the better question.

“Tilly. She says you have some of her stuff. I keep telling her you’re out of town on business but...”

But Tilly could be like a dog with a bone when she wanted something. If he’d taken something of hers when he left, it hadn’t been on purpose. “I’ll come home next week and try to find whatever she’s looking for.”

“Now, how’s Austin? Have you been down on Sixth Street drowning your sorrows in beer? You know she’s not worth it. She never was good enough for you and frankly, Willie dear, I never liked her.”

He rolled his eyes as a headache began to thump somewhere in the depths of his head.

“Willie? William!”

“Yes, Mom. No, not Sixth Street, just—” He sighed.

“I know it’s hard, baby, but you’ll find the right woman someday. A
good
woman. Now, pick yourself up and dust yourself off and put a smile on that beautiful face. Are you smiling?”

“Yes, Mom.” And he was, however briefly.

“I expect to hear from you on Wednesday before I go play Bridge.”

“Yes, ma’am. I won’t forget.”

“I love you, baby. Chin up.”

He hung up feeling guilty for lying but pleased he’d escaped their conversation relatively unscathed.

Will packed the last of his stuff and cleaned the cabin. Not that it would do much good but cleaning was preferable to pacing or sitting. A fishing show punctuated by bursts of static and the occasional roar of an outboard engine from the nearby lake didn’t do much for Will’s sanity. He practically lunged for the phone when it rang a few hours later.

“I’m just north of Ft. Worth,” John said.

“Jesus! Could you drive any slower?” Will ran a hand through his hair, wondering how much more pacing he could do.

“Hey, fuck you! I can hang up now and not tell you about the text message I just got.”

Will sank down on the bed, now made up with all the pillows and blankets in place. “Do I want to hear this?”

“Who the
hell
did you piss off?”

“Don’t fuck with me, John. Not now. What did it say?”

“You didn’t tell me everything, did you?”

“I told you what you needed to know.”

“Well, someone seems to think that having your girl matters to me. Why is that?” Sarcasm. Lots of it.

Will ignored it, focusing on the bigger picture. They didn’t think; they
knew
it would matter to him. Not John. Never mind that she’d run off and left him, Will wasn’t’ going to let anything happen to Sabrina. He’d thought that going on the offensive and letting Wynn track down the killer might be the way, but they’d been too slow. Or the killer had been ahead of him the entire time. A sobering thought.

Will had failed, and miserably so. He propped his head in his hand. “How did they get your number?” he croaked out.

“Who the hell knows, but you’re lucky they didn’t text Dad.”

Like their dad even knew
how
to text. He could barely use his cell phone, but Will kept his mouth shut. “What did it say?”

“The girl for your brother.”
John chuckled, dryly. “I have to say, with you out of the picture—”

“Less talk; more driving.”

* * *

T
wo of the longest hours of his life later, headlights pierced the cabin’s windows as a non-descript sedan pulled into the driveway.

His patience worn thin, Will slammed the door behind him. The solitude, the hot cabin and his worry over Bree had worn him down.

“How the hell did you find this place?” John asked as he climbed out and stretched, sunglasses firmly in place. With the same tall, broad-shouldered build and brown hair that only differed by a shade or two, they could have passed for twins, and had on more than one occasion.

“Julie. Some friend of a friend of hers.” Will hefted his bags onto his shoulders. “Now let’s go.”

“Figures.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Will threw his bags in the back seat as John circled around to the passenger side.

“If anyone knows about getting lost, she does.”

Ignoring his dig at their sister-in-law, who John disliked immensely—and vice versa—Will climbed in and fired up the sedan. “Let me see that text message.” John handed over his phone and Will studied it. “Why would they send it to
you
?”

“Sounds like someone’s attempt at making it personal.”

“Did you try and call—”

“Of course.” John glared at him, obviously insulted in his lack of faith at his brother’s abilities. “The number was no good.”

Will spun the car around and headed back toward town.

“Where...are you going?”

“To find Bree.”

“
Bree
,” John breathed, a knowing smile on his face and eyebrows arched.

Will smothered a groan. “Don’t start, please.”

“You can’t just take off all half-assed. You don’t even know where to look.”

“Matter of fact, I do.” He’d had plenty of time to think about it while he waited. There weren’t many places for Sabrina to run to, and he figured she’d been caught somewhere between the cabin and San Antonio. “If they’re after me, they know where she is and where she’d go. So yeah, I know where she is.”

“So do I.” John gave him a knowing smile.

Will slammed on the breaks and the car fishtailed, nearly ending up in a ditch before it came to a stop in a cloud of thick red dust. “For someone who can’t lie to save his ass, you sure do know how to walk around it.”

“I got another text message about an hour ago.”

“And you were going to tell me this when?”

“She’s just a girl.”

“She’s—” Will swallowed the lump in his throat, “—she’s not just a girl. She’s my responsibility.” Along with a bunch of other stuff he chose not to share with his brother. “What did the message say?” If they hurt one curl on her head...fuck it. He was going to kill them. All of them. Everyone involved.

“You didn’t say we were playing Lone Ranger. You said come get you.”

“What did the message say?”
Will bit out from between clenched teeth.

“Noon, tomorrow in San Antonio. Said you’d know where.”

The Ren Faire.

* * *

“I
’ve got news.” Wynn skipped over the niceties and got down to business as soon as he answered the phone, something Will appreciated.

“So do I,” Will said.

“Want to go first?”

“It’ll keep.” Once they’d passed Gainesville, Will set the cruise control at seventy-five and stretched in his seat. His long day was far from over.

“Rumor has it that Dre Anderson is cleaning up after himself.”

Sighing, Will hit the phone’s speaker button so John could hear. “Dre Anderson, huh?”

“Yeah.”

Will glanced at John who shrugged. Dre had hired Will to take out Derek, his business partner. “I never wanted to take that job in the first place.” He should have listened to his gut. Not that the job had felt wrong or difficult. Dre had been a referral, an acquaintance of an acquaintance. It happened all the time, and Will hadn’t thought a thing about it beyond his gut which had tried to warn him for reasons he’d never been able to put his finger on.

Chances were, Will hadn’t received the last 1.5 million Dre owed him either. Bastard. “Any idea
why
?”

“No. Far as I can tell, he’s just cleaning house.”

“Cleaning house,” Will echoed with a grimace.

“He’s a dead man,” John muttered.

“John?” Wynn asked.

“Yeah, and not if I get to him first,” Will said. “Sabrina ran off. And apparently whoever Dre hired to tidy things up has caught up with her.”

“Where are you?”

“Should be in Denton in about thirty minutes.”

“Pick me up.”

“Julie’s not gonna like it.” John smirked at Will, obviously happy to be a part of
anything
that Julie didn’t like.

“I’ll handle her. Let’s just go get your girl back.”

“She’s not—”

John snorted again.

The line went dead.

They were south of Denton before Will spoke again, trying to work out the one piece of the puzzle that still niggled at him. “Why would they text you?”

“Where’s your cell phone?”

Will groaned. “Shit. It was dead when I found it. I bought a disposable after the shooting and that’s what I used to call Wynn.”

“They might have, and being out there in the boonies, I’m sure cell reception was sucky at best.”

Struck with a horrible thought, Will’s eyes narrowed on the three-lane highway. “Or.”

“Or?”

“It’s personal.”

“Why would Dre make it personal?”

“He wouldn’t, but the guy he hired might. Why else would he text you—” Will held up a finger, “—besides, my dead phone. This is someone who knew your cell phone number.” And in their line of work, they didn’t exactly walk around handing out business cards.

“You’re right,” John conceded. “What do you know?”

“Not much.” Will shook his head, his attention divided by the thickening traffic. “Only that whoever he is, he had the Monte Carlo I used in Phoenix.”

“So he had to have followed you.”

“I was careful.” Will scowled at John, his mind trying to sort it all out. He didn’t do kids or women, he stayed out of domestic disputes, and he didn’t go after connected families. “I’m
always
careful.”

“I’m not saying you weren’t.”

At Wynn’s house, Will skipped a late dinner in favor of a shower while John filled Wynn in on their earlier discussion in the car.

Will had just snapped the last button on his jeans and reached for a T-shirt when a knock sounded at the door. “Come in.”

“How you holding up?” Julie slipped in the room and closed the door, all fresh-faced smiles, her brown hair falling over her shoulder.

He shrugged and sank down on the queen-size mattress, pulling his shirt firmly into place. “Anxious to get going.”

“You’d do better with some sleep. Matter of fact, the guys are talking about leaving in the morning, before sunup.” Julie held up a hand when he started to protest. “It’s obvious someone wants you more than her. She’ll be okay. John’s exhausted; you are too. You look like you’ve been through the wringer. Get some rest and get an early start.”

“I’m worried,” he softly confessed. Even though Wynn and Julie had been married nearly a year, Will had spent so much of the last year working, he didn’t know her that well. If it had been his sister Danielle, he would have shot straight, but Julie he wasn’t so sure about. That said, if Wynn trusted her, Will did, too... “I’m worried about Bree.” He really had to stop calling her that. Using her nickname implied
things
...things that weren’t there. Things he didn’t want to think about—like steamy-hot, early-morning sex.

She sat on the bed next to him and draped an arm across his shoulder. “Tell me about her.”

He shrugged and laughed, his throat thick with emotions completely unfamiliar to him as he started to talk.

“So her dad killed her mom,” Julie said when he finally stopped talking a while later.

“Step-dad,” he corrected. “And yeah.”

“No wonder she ran. That’s pretty heavy-duty stuff there, bucko.”

Will sighed, glancing over at the guest bedroom’s tidy dresser. “Yeah. What if I don’t—”

“You will. You Collier men know how to pinch hit.” She laughed softly and patted his shoulder. “Leave your dirty clothes. I’ll wash ‘em.”

And they’d be in San Antonio by noon. They had to.

I
was so exhausted, I almost stopped in Austin, but forced myself to push on, needing to get back to that last safe place I’d known. And as far as possible from Will, the cabin and the bed we’d made love in.

Once I reached the fair, I showed the security guy my pass. He waved me in and pointed me toward a few open spots.

I was still torn over whether going back to work was a good idea, and then reminded myself that I was running dangerously close to broke. Maybe not in real-world terms but in Sabrina-land, less than a grand in the stash was unacceptable. And really, who the hell would look for me here, at the scene of the crime?

I parked the van between two campers—a pop-up and a Winnebago—and made myself at home. Scamp knew better than to leave my sight, so I let him wander without his leash, sniffing tires and exploring our little temporary oasis. The fair would run for five more weekends. I could make some serious money. At least two or three grand, if I worked my ass off, then I could head to that fair in Baton Rouge—I’d already registered. That ran for two months. After that, I’d settle in somewhere warm for the winter, maybe Galveston. Some time near the ocean really appealed to me. Even if the thought of being alone didn’t. I chose not to examine who or what had caused my solitary state to up and decide to bother me.