The Warrior (27 page)

Corbin sighed. “Of course you do. What do you need?”

“I think it's time we called in the Feds, which is where you come in. There is a possibility that this man knows details that might lead them to Ponte.”

“Fantastic! Tell me where you are and how to get there. I'll make the necessary calls.”

“I own a place in the desert north of Sedona.”

“Give me directions,” Corbin said, writing quickly as John rattled them off, then added a phone number.

“It'll probably take at least a couple of hours to get everything together and get there. Are you going to be all right until then?”

“Yes.”

“John?”

“What?”

“Don't kill him.”

“You don't have to tell me that. If I wanted him dead, I wouldn't be talking to you.”

“Yeah, right. Okay. I'm making the calls now.”

“We'll be waiting,” John said, then pocketed the phone and the semiautomatic, grabbed the man's heels, rolled him over on his back and started dragging him toward the house.

 

Alicia was so scared she was sick to her stomach. She didn't know how much time had passed. She couldn't hear anything. She had to trust what John had told her and remember the fierceness with which he'd kept her alive so far. Now was not the time to doubt him.

And then there was the passion with which they'd made love. It had forever changed her life. She was never going to be the same—never going to be satisfied with the status quo again. She wanted a life with John Nightwalker in every way a woman could want a man. During the good times and the bad. In joy and in sorrow. But she couldn't get past the memory of how he'd stood before the painting of his dead wife's face, fearing that he would never love her the way he'd loved White Fawn. She would gladly take second best. She didn't care if
he didn't love her enough. She could love enough for the both of them. She just didn't know if he would be willing to go that far.

She didn't know how much time had passed when she realized she was hearing footsteps running through the room above. The breath caught in the back of her throat. Was it John? Or was it her killer?

Then a door slammed loudly. She looked up. John was coming down the stairs on the run. She bolted up from the bed, the sheet falling to the floor as she threw herself into his arms.

“Are you all right?” she asked, running her hands across his face, checking for bruising, then examining his clothing for blood.

“I'm okay,” he said quickly, then grabbed the sheet and wrapped it back around her. “You're freezing, baby.”

“Is it over?”

“Not yet,” he said. “But it soon will be. You're going to want to get dressed. We're going to have company in a while.”

“Company?”

“The Feds. Come with me. I don't want to leave our…visitor alone any longer than I have to.”

Alicia's eyes widened in disbelief as he pulled her up the steps and then back into his bedroom. She paused at the foot of his bed, watching as he began digging through a dresser. “You brought him here? The man who was going to kill me?”

“He's tied up out on the back terrace. Get dressed and meet me out there,” John said, then stopped long enough to slide an arm around her waist and pull her against him. He kissed her then—hard and fast, but with a silent
reminder there was more where that came from—and left the room on the run.

Alicia stumbled out of his bedroom, pausing long enough to gather up her clothes, which were still lying in the middle of the hall, then ran into her room to get dressed.

 

Sam Watkins came to consciousness staring straight up at the night sky. It took him a few moments to realize he was lying on the patio of the house he'd been planning to invade. His hands and feet were bound so tightly that they felt numb, and he could see the silhouette of someone sitting in a chair about ten feet away.

“So you took two million dollars to end my life? How much would you charge to kill my father?”

Hearing a woman's voice was surprising, but not as shocking as what she'd just asked. Suddenly he realized he was in the presence of the woman he'd been sent to kill. There was a moment of excitement when he wondered if he was going to get out of this after all, a moment when he believed he could make a deal with the intended victim and double-cross his employer.

“I'd do him for the same as what he paid me to do you,” he said.

“And what amount was that again?”

“Two.”

“Million?”

“Yeah. I mean…he's got the—”

Alicia interrupted. “I know what he's got. What I want to know now is…John, did you get that confession on tape?”

“Every bit of it,” John said.

Sam Watkins arched his back and looked behind him,
saw the same silhouette he'd seen out in the desert, and realized he'd been had.

“Son of a bitch,” he swore.

“You certainly are,” Alicia said, then suddenly pointed upward. “John! I hear a helicopter. There…see the lights. Is that them?”

“Looks like it,” John said, and picked up a remote from the table beside him and aimed it toward a box on the back of the house.

Suddenly the whole place was flooded with light, along with a good hundred yards of land at the back of the property. Sam closed his eyes against the glare, wondering where it had all gone wrong. Part of it was his own greed. He would admit to that. But part of it was most likely complacency. He'd begun to believe his own PR. He couldn't be caught. He didn't fail.

But that was before he'd walked into the wrong territory and underestimated the enemy. He had time for one moment of regret, thinking about the two million dollars that would never be spent, and then he watched a helicopter land, and a half-dozen men spill out and come running. At that point, the rest of his carefully laid plans fell down around his ears.

 

“The money was wired into Watkins' account from a numbered bank account in Switzerland, which tells us nothing about Ponte's location. But it does add to the charges piling up around him. Treason. Attempted murder. And the county judge down in Georgia who let Dieter Bahn go is in hot water, too. With Watkins' statement implicating Bahn as the go-between for the hit on Alicia Ponte, Bahn can no longer claim any kind of
innocence as to his employer's intent. Unfortunately he, too, has disappeared. If I were guessing, I'd say Bahn, like his boss, is most likely out of the country.”

Alicia sat without moving, listening to the phone conversation between John and Special Agent Joshua on speakerphone as the FBI man filled them in on the latest details. Most of them she already knew, and her mind began to wander.

It had been two days since they'd taken Watkins into custody. Two days during which she and John had tiptoed around the obvious. They'd made love. But where did they go from there? When this was over—if she was still alive to tell the tale—was that also going to be the end of the line for their relationship? Even worse, was she kidding herself by calling what they shared a relationship? He made love to her, but the word
love
never crossed his lips.

Then her reverie ended as she suddenly focused on something John asked.

“Do you think the threat to Alicia's life is as high as it was?”

Joshua paused for a moment before he answered. “It's hard to say. I mean, it's obvious this has become personal to Ponte. He knows we have the goods on him, so it's not as if we need her testimony for anything. In fact, she didn't actually give us anything we could have used in a trial, although she's the one who set the ball rolling. If she hadn't told us what she did, it's unlikely he would ever have been caught. Everything we needed for trial came from Jacob Carruthers. Even though he's dead now, thanks to his sworn statements, we had probable cause to confiscate everything we could have hoped for, and it was all there. Both in Carruthers' office
and in Ponte's computer records. So Ponte's agenda regarding his daughter is obviously personal. I can't say this won't happen again. And if it does, we have no way of knowing who he'll hire next. People will do a lot of wrong things for the right amount of money.”

John glanced toward Alicia, then realized she was upset. But who wouldn't be? He'd learned all he could from Joshua; it was time to wrap up the call.

“Yes, you're right, of course. I was just asking on her behalf.”

“So what are your plans?” Joshua asked.

John glanced over at Alicia. She shrugged, then looked away.

“We're not sure,” he said. “But if we leave this location, I'll be sure and let you know. Oh…and when you see Woodliff again, tell him thanks for getting you guys out here so fast the other night.”

Joshua snorted softly, but there was humor in his voice. “Yeah, if he gets any more involved in this case than he already is, we'll have to put him on the payroll.”

John laughed. “Knowing Woodliff, he'd turn down the offer.”

“You think? Why so?” Joshua asked, feeling slightly insulted.

“Because you guys have too many rules, and Woodliff doesn't always play by the rules.”

Joshua laughed then, relieved they hadn't been dissed. “You're right about that. Later.”

The line went dead.

John hung up the receiver, turned to Alicia, crossed his arms over his chest and fixed her with a steady gaze.

“Talk to me.”

“About what?” she asked, then turned away.

“Don't look away from me,” he said shortly.

She frowned. “Don't tell me what to do.”

“There's something about me you need to know,” John said.

Her frown deepened. “I'm listening.”

“I don't play games, Alicia. If there is ever going to be anything between us, you deal with that now or call it quits.”

She went still. “If? As in you're willing for there to be something between us?”

“Ah…” he said softly. “Now I understand.”

Alicia inhaled a shaky breath. “Good for you. Enlighten me, please, and then we'll both get the joke.”

In three strides he was standing in front of her. He reached down and took her by the hands, pulling gently until she was standing up.

“Do you see me laughing?”

She shook her head.

“Then pay attention, because I haven't said this to a woman in a real long time. Something happened between us when we made love. Something I don't want to lose. I know we've got a hell of a fight ahead of us, but when it's over—and it
will
be over, I promise you—I'm going to ask you a question.”

Alicia was beginning to tremble. This was so far beyond anything she'd hoped for that she was afraid she was dreaming. He could be infuriating and formidable and damned bossy, but she was so falling in love.

“What's the question?” she asked.

He grinned. “You weren't paying attention.”

“I was…am…paying attention,” she muttered.

“Is this mess over with yet?”

“Oh. No, I don't guess so.”

“Then it's not yet time for me to ask the question.”

She doubled up her fist and thumped him lightly on the chest. “You make me crazy.”

Then she saw his eyes darken as the smile slid off his face.

“You make me forget promises I made. Promises that have to be kept.”

“You mean what my father did to—”

He suddenly pressed two fingers across her mouth, stopping the words before they were spoken. The tone of his voice softened until it was hardly more than a whisper as he said, “Know this, and know it now. What that man did to my family was done long, long ago…before you existed. You hold no part in it. No guilt in it. You are as much a victim as they were.”

She sighed as her vision blurred. “Oh, John,” she said softly, then slid her arms around his neck and kissed the hollow at the base of his throat.

John flinched as if he'd been shot. He wrapped his arms around her, resting his chin on the crown of her head, and tried not to think of White Fawn, but it was an impossible task. That was the way she used to show him that she wanted to make love.

Alicia paused. She could feel the tension in his body. She'd done something wrong, but she didn't know what.

“John?”

He groaned, then picked her up in his arms. “I want to make love to you. I
need
to make love to you. Now.”

Alicia sighed. Everything was all right. She'd just been imagining things.

“Then what are you waiting for?” she asked softly.

He turned around and laid her down on the Navajo rug in front of the fireplace.

“Here?” she asked as he began to undress her.