In the Teeth of the Wind (25 page)

"You didn't have to come all the way out here to tell us what you think Quinterras is doing,"

Boucharde reminded him. "What's bothering you, Jamie?"

Cullen rolled his shoulders; he couldn't keep still. "Mickey reminded me about Luis' threat that day he

left, you know? He said he'd destroy what Coni held dear? Remember?"

"We remember," Rhianna said and felt tears prickling the back of her eyes. If it were the last thing she

ever did, she'd make sure this man got help. Everyone in the room felt his suffering and there wasn't a

single one of them who didn't want to help Jamie Cullen.

Cullen laughed and this time there was self-grief in the sound. "He destroyed me, that's for sure."

When denials were made, he shook his head. "Yeah, he did. And he almost destroyed Mick's marriage.

He's put doubt in the minds of Danny's people and caused Tim-Pat all kinds of grief up in Montana." He

nodded. "He's done a fucking good job of destroying our lives."

"Only if you let him win, Jamie," Rhianna replied. "And I don't think any of you are going to do that."

"He said he was going to take everything Coni held dear and destroy it, kill it right before his very

eyes," Cullen continued as though he hadn't heard her. "He was going to make Coni watch." His tortured

gaze went to the FBI agent. "Even if it took him twenty years."

Boucharde flinched and shot out of his chair as if propelled by a cannon. He rushed to the phone and

snatched up the receiver, hurriedly jabbing in the numbers of his regional office. "Boucharde!" he

identified himself. "I don't have time to explain but start calling the offices in Billings, Montana, Austin,

Texas, and Syracuse, New York. I want Collins, Keane, and Sullivan put into protective custody, now!

Sullivan's wife and kids, too. And make it quick!"

Rhianna looked at Jamie Cullen and found him watching her. "Today's the eighth," she said and saw

him nod.

"Like Mick said, you're sharp," Cullen told her.

"I don't get it," Cortesio said.

"They all graduated from the military academy on June ninth, nineteen seventy-five," Rhianna

answered. "Twenty years ago tomorrow."

"You think this Quinterras is planning on trying to take them all out tomorrow?" asked Trip.

"I think he'll try," Rhianna said.

Cullen nodded. "But it isn't just us he's gonna go after."

"No," Boucharde snapped as he hung up the phone. "It isn't."

Every man in the room was looking at her and Rhianna felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

"But I wasn't there. Quinterras doesn't even know me."

"He knows about you," Boucharde growled.

"And you can bet he knows you're the one person among us that Coni cherishes the most," Cullen

added.

Rhianna shivered. What had Mick Sullivan told them Luis Quinterras said? She replayed it again in her

mind.

_"He'd take everything Coni had ever held dear and destroy it right before his eyes, making him watch

while the life was drained away…"_

"I know how we can catch him, Rhianna," she heard Cullen saying and shook herself.

"How?"

Cullen fished something from the pocket of his jeans. He extended his hand, turned it over and

unclenched his fingers. In his palm were a pair of earrings made for pierced ears.

Boucharde took one of the earrings. It was a small black disk, one millimeter in diameter, with a rope

of twisted silver around the perimeter. He looked up at Cullen. "Do they know you have these, Jamie?"

Cullen grinned like a little boy who'd just pulled off a great prank. "I swiped the tracker, too."

"Homing devices?" Trip questioned, taking the other earring from Cullen's palm. "You want her to

wear a homing device?" he said angrily.

"They're going to come after her," Cortesio said. "I think we all know that."

"They aren't going to get her!" Trip bellowed. "What the hell's wrong with you people? Ain't no way

I'm gonna allow her to get snatched!"

"It's not up to you, Trip," Rhianna said quietly. "And I'll do whatever it takes to get Quinterras out of

Conor's life for good."

****

Erica watched as the morgue attendant rolled the gurney into the hearse, then closed and checked the

doors. She smiled at the driver, a man who just happened to be her husband, and waved as he put the

hearse into gear and pulled away from the loading dock. Without another glance, she hurried to the

elevator and rode to the third floor.

"Is he gone?" the charge nurse asked.

"Yes," Erica replied. "I'm going to make sure Gimble's cleaning the room."

Victor was standing in the partially opened door of the utility closet as Erica started down the hall.

When she stopped, turned her back to him and waited, he ducked back into the utility room, picked up

the unconscious Federal Marshal and carried him back to the door of room 318. He sat the Marshal

down, turned, and strode out of the Midwest Clinic for the last time. Erica was right behind him.

Five*

C.C. Corbettson winced as he turned over. His back was alive with a score of wicked scratches and

his shaft was bruised and raw. He pushed himself up in the bed and reached for the bottle of tequila on

the nightstand. Taking a deep drag on the fiery liquor, he braced the bottle on his naked thigh and turned

his head to look down at the sated woman lying beside him.

"How ya doing, darling?" He drawled as he laid his free hand on the woman's smooth shoulder.

Caitlin Greiner stretched like a contented feline rising out of a long, satisfying slumber and - just like

that contented feline - purred deep in her throat as she shifted to her side and laid her head in C.C.'s lap.

She slid her left hand under his thigh and nipped him lightly where his thigh met his groin.

"Don't start something you ain't prepared to finish," he warned her.

A lascivious smile pulled at the corners of Caitlin's broad mouth and she looked up at him through the

screen of her lashes - an invitation that did not need voicing.

Setting the bottle of tequila aside, C.C. reached down and plowed his hand through Caitlin's dark curls

and grabbed a fistful of hair. He grinned as she flinched but never considered letting up on the pressure;

he knew she didn't want him to.

A low growl of pleasure came from Caitlin's throat as he brutally pulled up her head. She had to scoot

sideways across him to ease the pain in her scalp, but as his greedy mouth closed over hers and his

darting tongue raped her mouth, Caitlin felt the wild beginnings of lust that had been coming and going for

her all day long. It was a heady experience she had never known and Corbettson's savagery thrilled that

part of her which had never known expression.

"You like this, baby?" she heard him grunt as his mouth slid from hers.

"I like this," she returned.

C.C. released his hold on her hair and pushed her down on the rumpled sheets. Before she could

protest, he was on and in her in one violent thrust, pushing with all his strength into the heat of her body.

Her grunts spurred him on and he filled her fully, punishing her, pummeling her with the entire length of his

cock.

"Hurt me!" Caitlin cried out, raking her nails down his back and across his flexing buttocks. "Make me

hurt!"

Corbettson was more than happy to oblige her. He was giddy with the unexpected pleasure of finding

a woman who enjoyed being hurt as much as he enjoyed hurting her. That she was bruised and battered

already from his brutality was far more intoxicating than the booze.

"Yes!"
Caitlin screamed. She raised her legs and wrapped them around his hips to anchor him deep

within her.

"Do it, baby," Corbettson ordered, his heavy flanks working like a piston. "Come on and do it!"

Without warning, he flipped them over so that she rode him, guiding her hips up and down his length.

"Yes!" She ground herself against his groin, rising up and coming down on his shaft as though trying to

pierce her very womb.

"You can do it, baby," C.C. encouraged. His eyes glazed. "Come on. You can do it!"

Before meeting C.C. Corbettson, Caitlin Nolan Greiner had never experienced an orgasm nor even

come close to knowing how one felt. Her husband - worthless little Yuppie stockbroker that he was -

had never even brought her to arousal let alone culmination. That this man could succeed with little or no

effort drove Caitlin to new heights of needing to know the full spectrum of the sexual experience.

"Hit me!" she whispered and her head rocked as C.C.'s heavy hand connected with her

already-bruised jaw. She screamed mindlessly with sheer animal lust as his fingernails clawed across her

swollen nipples - drawing blood - and continued on down her belly where his fingers dug into the

softness and twisted.

She bucked like a crazed mare then began to shudder as a violent climax seized her. She threw back

her head and screamed as the sensation rippled through her body.

C.C. grunted and flipped them over again as the little pulses around his turgid shaft told him she was

coming again. He drove mercilessly into her, slamming her head into the upholstered headboard and felt

his own shattering fulfillment wash over him. He quivered once, then collapsed atop her, spent.

Sweat was slick between them as Caitlin enclosed C.C. within the possessive circle of her arms. His

head lay against her breast, his heavy pants of breath making small explosions of cool air on her flesh.

She cradled him tenderly, stroking his damp hair, reveling in the weight of him pressing down on her.

"I think I've died and gone to heaven," she whispered. "Was it good for you?"

C.C. raised up and looked down at her. "Yeah, baby. It was good." With a gentleness he had never

shown another woman, he gently plied his lips over hers. "Real good. Better than I've ever had it."

"I'm glad," she said. She pressed his head against her bosom.

They both fell asleep only to be brought awake by the rude jingling of the telephone. Neither wanted

to answer it, but Corbettson reluctantly reached out to stop the insistent ringing. "Yeah?" he growled into

the receiver.

"We've had some trouble down at the Midwest Clinic," Captain Darlington informed him.

C.C. flipped over, dragging the cord across Caitlin's naked breasts. "What kind of trouble?"

"Nolan is missing."

Corbettson swung his gaze toward his bed partner. "Missing as in how?"

"Someone popped the Federal Marshal and took him, Corbettson," Darlington snapped. "Get your

ass down there, now!"

The line went dead and C.C. was left listening to the whir of the broken connection. He lowered the

receiver to his chest and sat staring off into the semi-darkness of the bedroom.

"What is it?" Caitlin asked.

"They've taken Irish again," he said, leaning over her to hang up the phone.

"Oh, for the love of God!" Caitlin exploded. She swung her legs off the bed and stood up, hands on

her shapely hips. "I'm getting tired of this shit!"

C.C. glanced up at her and smiled. "You have about as much love for Nolan as I do, don't you,

darling?"

"I wish - " Caitlin threw her hands into the air, her eyes narrowing with feline spite. "I wish he'd just

vanish off the face of the earth this time!"

Corbettson's gaze shifted over the magnificent perfection of Caitlin's body and he felt his groin tighten

again. He knew he'd never get enough of screwing this broad and - as long as she'd let him - he'd

continue to do so every chance he got.

"Well, they may just kill him this time," C.C. said chuckling. He got out of the bed and reached for his

jeans.

"Where are you going?" she demanded, raking him with a savage look.

C.C. shrugged. "Gotta go make like a cop, baby." He spared her a glance as he dragged on his shirt.

"Thanks to your little brother. You'd better get dressed and head over to the clinic, too. Just to keep up

the appearance of a concerned sister."

"Damn his eyes!" she snarled. "I hate him so much I could just.." She let the thought dangle as she

plopped down on the bed and drew her long legs up into the circle of her arms.

A low sound of amusement rumbled out of Corbettson's chest. He went to her and bent down.

Ignoring the way she turned her head when he tried to kiss her, he snaked out a hand and gripped her

chin in a brutal hold, anchoring her lips for him to plunder. When he'd had his fill of her mouth, he tugged

playfully on her chin then released her. "Keep your fingers crossed that we don't find the prick."

Caitlin thrust out her lips in an angry pout as she watched her lover stuff his gun into its holster. Her

gaze moved over his stocky form and she liked what she saw. When he turned at the bedroom door and

asked if she'd still be there when he returned, she locked her gaze on his.

"I really hope he's gone for good this time, Corbettson."

C.C. smiled. "So do I."

Six*

"Is this the woman?" Trip handed the night charge nurse a copy of the composite drawing of Felicity

Rogers.

Nurse Janice Meiggs nodded. "Yes. This is Erica."

"How long has she been here?"

"Tonight was her fourth night. She came highly recommended." Janet frowned. "I knew she was too

good to be true."

Trip looked at Rhianna. "I'll run a check with the licensing board. Chances are Erica Bochner is her

real name."

Trembling, Rhianna turned away. Her wet hair clung to her cheeks. When the call had come in to Joe