Obsession Falls (46 page)
Kennedy got his leather gloves and donned his black leather jacket. “I believe he’s fast-forwarded to the end. To finish the game, his castle must be taken and razed to the ground. If a warrior is harried into the castle, he can lose in a frontal attack or because the other warrior sabotages his defenses. He can also lure the opponent into the castle with the appearance of defeat and into the arms of a well-prepared attack. Or he can circle around while the opponent is attacking an empty castle and take the other castle, and win. There are variations of those strategies, but that about covers it.”
“Why doesn’t he attack here?”
“Venom is the snake you step on unaware. He wants us out, seeking him. Then he’ll surprise us, destroy us.”
“That’s hopeful.” She sighed. “Kennedy, how is this going to end?”
“In the game, only one of the warriors can survive.”
“So it does end in death. Obviously. Yours or his. And what happens to the Prize?”
“The Prize goes to the conqueror.”
“And…?”
Yes. Of course she had thought this through. “The Prize can be retained, or sacrificed.” He caught her and pulled her into his arms. “But the Prize can vanquish both warriors, and by any means, no matter what I have to sacrifice, I promise I will save you.”
“I believe you. And I promise I will save you, too.” She searched his eyes as if wanting to impress him with her sincerity. “Now come on. Enough talking. Let me get my backpack, and we can go. Let’s do this thing now.”
Summer and Kennedy hotly debated whether to start looking for Jimmy’s lair now or first go into town so Summer could change.
Kennedy believed the search would be lengthy and would require as much time as Brachler could engineer into the problem. He wanted to start now.
Summer knew she couldn’t defeat Jimmy wearing Kennedy’s sweat suit. Since it was her car, her beloved, trusty, worse-for-wear but still speedy 1969 Pontiac GTO, and she was driving, she won the fight.
They turned onto the highway and headed north, toward town. She was just getting into the drive, preparing to take Kennedy into another dimension involving a great car, a winding coastal road and her own daredevil spirit of acceleration when—an explosion blasted their ears and rocked the ground.
Summer slammed on her brakes. She looked at Kennedy in disbelief. “He did not do that.” She whipped a U-turn, drove back to the Hartmans’, and arrived in front of the burning, leveled remains of the house in time to see the detached garage blow up, sending charred debris thirty feet into the air.
She stomped on the gas, driving back to the highway and toward town.
When the speedometer read ninety, Kennedy pressed her shoulder. “Shouldn’t you slow down?”
“Trust me, someone’s seen the smoke and called in the fire. Trucks will be headed this way as fast as I’m headed that way.” As she took the corners, her knuckles tightened on the steering wheel. “How did he do that?”
“The house wasn’t wired to explode. I checked.” Kennedy was sure of himself. “So did Jimmy lob bombs at the house?”
Summer slowed to a more reasonable speed. “Yes! I was staring at the burning house so hard, and there was so much debris flying, I almost missed it. But something slammed through the garage roof right before it exploded.”
“Destroying the opponent’s lair is a brilliant move, but was Brachler sitting with a grenade launcher waiting until we left?” Kennedy answered his own question. “Unlikely. So his lair is close enough for him to keep an eye on us.”
Summer’s eyes narrowed. “That tricky bastard. I’ll bet I know where he is…” They drove past O’Hara’s Pub. She glanced into the parking lot, then turned in. “Let’s find out for sure.”
It was just past three, and the place was packed with construction guys.
Her
construction guys. Pitchers of beer and tumblers of wine rested on the tables, and most of the men were staring glumly into their drinks.
She walked over to Berk Moore and slapped him on the shoulder.
He peered at her blearily. “Oh, hey, Summer.” He sized up Kennedy, silent and stalwart. “He looks like he’s got money. At least
you
landed on your feet.”
“Thanks. I guess.” She pulled up a chair and sat down. “Why are you here this time of day? Why aren’t you working on Parnham’s house?”
Berk reared back in his chair. “Didn’t you hear? He fired us. My whole crew.” He waved an arm around at the hopeless-looking guys. “Fired.”
“Who’s working on the house now?” she asked.
“Nobody. He’s not going to finish it.” Berk muttered, “Right from the beginning, goddamn job was snakebit. We covered the whole outside to protect it from the weather. What for? I mean, really—what for? So it could rot.”
Kennedy asked, “Did he have you finish any of the interior rooms?”
“Yep. I got extra men in to do it on his schedule. Worked day and night. Then …
you’re fired.
” Obviously, Berk still couldn’t believe it. “Just like that.”
Summer recognized a force at work that could only be Jimmy Brachler. “Which rooms?”
“What does it matter?” Berk drank the last of his beer and stared into the glass as if surprised to see the bottom.
“Which rooms did you finish?” Kennedy’s voice held a touch of the whip.
Berk snapped to attention. “That goddamn black hole of a wine cellar.”
Kennedy nodded at Summer. “The Dungeon.” He obviously had his suspicions, too.
“Right. It was like a dungeon,” Berk agreed. “The tower room.”
“The Watchtower,” Summer said. “And on the ground floor, the office that faces the cliffs.”
“Command Center,” Kennedy said. “Anything else?”
“Inside the building, we completely covered a couple of the corridors and the stairway in plywood. When you’re inside there, it’s like a maze. A maze.” Berk stroked his stubbled face. “Who the hell would want a maze in their house?”
“Someone who is playing a game,” Summer said.
“He’s a goddamn idiot, then,” Berk said.
“Can’t argue with that.” Summer turned to Kennedy.
But Kennedy was no longer behind her. Instead, he was leaning over the bar, talking to the bartender. He handed over a wad of bills, then joined her.
As they headed for the door, the bartender shouted, “That fine gentleman ordered pizzas and drinks for every one of you sorry out-of-work sons a bitches. So give him a hand!”
Summer and Kennedy walked out on a resounding cheer.
Summer didn’t know if she loved Kennedy. But she sure did like him. “That was good of you,” she said.
“It’s the least I can do. It’s my fault they’re unemployed.”
“A few hours ago, just to be a bitch, I might have agreed with you.” She grinned at him savagely. “But it’s Jimmy’s fault, and Jimmy has pissed me off.”
“Took him long enough.”
“I’m a real even-tempered gal.”
He laughed. “I’ve noticed that about you. Anyway, beer and pizza is cheap. I’m going to have to buy Harold a new car.”
“Harold?”
“At the resort. Harold loaned me his Prius to get home from the party. It was parked in the Hartmans’ garage.”
* * *
Kennedy paced Summer’s tiny living room and listened as, in the bedroom, Summer and Kateri argued.
“I can’t handle a forty-five automatic repeating pistol,” Summer said. “It’s too unwieldy for me to carry when I climb.”
“I can come,” Kateri said. “I can carry it!”
Kennedy had just been formally introduced to Kateri. He remembered seeing her at the party, but he could not reconcile that Cruella de Vil with this woman, tall and well built, with snapping brown eyes and straight glossy hair, half black, half bleached white.
“On some level, what I’m about to say to you might sound stupid…” Summer took an audible breath. “But we’re not allowed to bring reinforcement into the game.”
“On
some
level?” Kateri asked.
Sarcasm. He recognized it.
“I know.” Summer sounded both resigned and exasperated. “I know.”
“That little popgun of yours is not going to stop anything,” Kateri said.
“If I aim well—and I will—it’ll put a hole right through Jimmy’s stone-cold heart.”
“Unless he’s wearing a Kevlar vest.”
“I’ll shoot him in the nuts.”
“Even if you miss and hit his leg, that’s a good strategy. I wonder if I could lift explosives from the Coast Guard and pass them off to you.” Kateri sounded thoughtful.
“I think between losing the cutter and being investigated for causing earthquakes, you’re in enough trouble with the government.”
Kennedy stopped pacing. In trouble with the government? Who was this Kateri?
Summer said, “Anyway, don’t worry about a weapon. I’ve got this…”
Kennedy could imagine Summer gesturing. But at what?
“And,” Summer said, “I’ve got an idea.”
Kennedy moved closer to listen, but all he heard was Summer’s voice say, “Mr. Szymanski,” followed by a wild burst of laughter from Kateri.
“My God, girl.” Kateri was all admiration. “That’s diabolical.”
Arm in arm, the two women came out of the bedroom.
If it hadn’t been for Summer, Kennedy would have viewed Kateri with interest. But Summer commanded all his attention. She wore dark, tight-fitting jeans, a black tee, and hiking boots. She had her pistol strapped to her side and a carpenter’s tool belt loaded with a framing hammer, a grappling hook with a length of rope, a utility knife, and two screwdrivers. She wore one of her woven leather belts, this one with a large, round, blue stone the size of a baby’s fist in the middle and two smaller stones on either side. She had a black jacket slung over one shoulder, and she looked tough, capable—and coolly angry.
“I’m ready.” Summer handed him her jacket.
He held it as she slipped it on. “Leave your cell phone,” he said. “We don’t need Jimmy tracking our movements.”
She laughed nastily. “I left my phone at the Hartmans’. He blew it up.”
Jimmy wasn’t smart enough to be scared of Summer Leigh.
Jimmy was a fool.
They walked out to the car.
Summer turned to Kennedy. “I forgot my climbing gloves on the bed. And my iPad—Parnham’s house plans are on my iPad. Would you get them for me?”
His eyes narrowed. “You won’t try to leave me here?”
She was startled, then outraged. “Do you think I’m going to run now?”
“No,” he said. “I’m afraid you want to tackle Brachler on your own.”
“The Irish have a saying—better a coward for a few minutes than dead for the rest of your life. Without you I don’t have a chance. I’ll wait.”
He cupped her chin, slid his thumb possessively over her lower lip. “See that you do.” He was always trying to be the politically correct, humble supplicant for her heart. Then he did something like that, and blew it all to hell.
Kateri watched him walk away. “Kennedy McManus is a very interesting turn of events for you.”
“Yes. He is.” Wretched with embarrassment, needing a friend’s opinion, Summer said, “He told me he loves me.”
“A
very
interesting turn of events,” Kateri repeated.
“I could love him, I think, but other factors come into play…” Summer couldn’t explain the two enemies/two suitors thing. Not when she didn’t understand it herself. Not when she couldn’t think about it without humiliation. “It doesn’t matter. Kateri, here’s what I want you to do. An hour after we leave here, call Garik—it’s got to be Garik, not one of his deputies—and tell him we’re out at the Parnham construction site and have cornered a killer. He’s to come in with all guns blazing.”
“What about the rules of the game?” Kateri was mocking her.
“I never agreed to play. So I’ll follow the rules to get what I want.” Summer leaned closer. “If law enforcement shows up too early, they’ll arrest Jimmy and give him another chance to run the world from a prison cell—if he ever got that far. I would guess evidence would pop up to show he was innocent, and he’d be released. I can’t allow that.”
“You plan to kill him?”
“Yes.” She had to.
“Honey, I admire your intentions, I really do. But there’s a world of difference between thinking someone should be dead and taking a life. They train soldiers to kill people, and they do it, but trauma destroys a lot of them.” Kateri put her hand on Summer’s shoulder. “I’m not trying to discourage you. I’m trying to prepare you—you have to be mentally strong to stand up to the horror of doing something you cannot undo.”
“I know. But I’ve had over a year of pain and fear to steel my resolve.” Summer shrugged. “That’s the other reason I want the cavalry to show up to save the day. In case I fail. Or Kennedy fails. Or, God forbid, Jimmy wins.”
“Is this the guy Rainbow was talking about?” Kateri asked. “The one who’s using the old airport?”
“Rainbow’s got it figured out.”
“I’ll give Garik the message.” As Kennedy returned with the gloves and the iPad, Kateri stepped away from the car. “Report in as soon as you can.”
As they drove away, Kennedy asked, “Now where?”
“We’re going to go talk to a man about a bomb.”
* * *
Old Mr. Szymanski leaned on his canes, looked at the smashed trunk of his beloved GTO, and trembled with rage.
Summer hoped he didn’t have a stroke, so she talked fast, trying to ease his distress. “The guy who dropped the tree was trying to kill me, and the car got in the way.”
Mr. Szymanski’s cheeks grew mottled and red, and the veins beneath the thin skin on his forehead throbbed.
She glanced at Kennedy.
Kennedy hovered, arm half-extended as if to catch the old man when he collapsed.
She talked
faster
. “But I know who hired the guy, and Kennedy and I, we’re hunting him down. The thing is, I know you were in World War Two, and I was wondering if you brought home any—”
Mr. Szymanski swung around and pointed one cane at her face. “If I fix you up, do you promise to kill the vandal who would do this to a classic Pontiac?”
She nodded. “That is our intention.”