Smokescreen Read online

  She inched closer on her knees, checking the house again, feeling the pressure from all sides. “That’s why I’m here. To protect them.” She was losing time she couldn’t afford…she should just walk away from Jeth and do what needed to be done.

  But she needed him. She needed his help, and she needed the understanding of the one person who’d finally been so damned bulldoggedly persistent that he’d found her deeply hidden truths. “That’s why I’m here,” she repeated, and this close she could see his face, see the furl of his brow as he struggled to deal with what he’d witnessed and what she was. “But I never lied to you about what this night would bring for you.”

  After a long moment, he nodded. “No,” he said. “You never did.”

  She inched closer yet. No more time to waste. He had to listen. “I can’t talk about this. I’ve got to go back there.” She handed him the camera, the images queued up on the LCD display on the back. “Scalpucci is here. Not just his errand boys, but Scalpucci himself. I can’t think of anything that would bring him out in the open like this—except for his wife. That would explain their delay in reaching this place—they had to pick up Scalpucci. And Gretchen’s got to be here, too.”

  He looked up at her with the grimmest of expressions, his mouth thinned to a line in the shadow of his mustache and his eyes gone from a struggling frown to a new type of anguish. “She’s not the only one.” He turned the camera so she could see. “The woman in the middle…that’s my sister.”

  Sam’s mouth dropped open. “No,” she said, unthinking words straight from her stunned brain to her mouth. “She can’t still be here. It’s been days. Unless—” No, she wasn’t going to say that out loud. She wasn’t.

  Except he looked at her, and she knew that now of all times, the only thing keeping the thin twist of connection between them was the truth. So she took a deep breath and said, low enough so maybe he just wouldn’t hear it after all, “Unless she had to recover before she could travel.”

  He heard her. His face tightened down and his breath came short and sharp and only after all that was he finally able to mutter, “Son of a bitch.” And then he looked up at her and said, “But you can help her. You can help them all. You can use your…your what, your superhero powers?—and get them out of there.”

  She laughed, more than a little bitter. “There’s no superhero here. Just one very normal person with a few tricks up her sleeve.” A million different ways to be someone other than who she really was, at least as far as anyone could perceive. Just…not really. Not ever really.

  “Then use those tricks,” he said, suddenly and unexpectedly fierce. “Everything I said…I was wrong. About all of it. Just use them.”

  She nodded. Slowly. “I will,” she said. “But not because I think you believe what you just said. I don’t. But…it’s what I do.”

  “Because you can.”

  “Yes. Because I can.”

  And he nodded, as much to himself as to her. “I’ll help. Whatever that takes. But first—”

  She knew what was coming. What he needed to trust her. She lifted her chin, looking straight into his shadowed eyes. For a moment they hesitated, knee-to-knee, behind the bushes with the night air pounding around them and action looming close. The sparse streetlight fell on his eyes—not enough to see color, but enough to reveal expression. Impatience. Expectation.

  She took a deep breath and let her guise fall away. Not just like that, but only after a long moment of struggle—a moment in which she thought she might not be able to do it at all. To reveal herself—her real self—for the first time since childhood.

  She might as well be naked.

  She wanted to run. But she forced herself to stay right where she was, sitting on her heels on the cold ground, Jeth so close—closer than she’d thought somehow. Her heart beat the quick, flighty rhythm of a cornered wild thing and she wondered just how much of her feelings showed on her face.

  Her real face.

  “Ah,” Jeth said, and his hand came up to brush her cheek with the back of his knuckles. “There you are.” His hand wasn’t entirely steady as a fingertip followed the bridge of her nose and over one eyebrow. Sam leaned into his touch without thinking, and then blinked when she realized it.

  “Here I am,” she said. Shaky. Naked and vulnerable and real. Looking back at the first man who’d ever seen through her, and finding him still riveted to her. Don’t think about it. Don’t try to plan it. Just find the moment.

  Now. This moment. This instant of clarity before the world rushed in and Sam I Am leaped into action and then Jeth walked away with his sister.

  She took his whiskery nighttime face in her own hands and drew him close. He accepted the invitation without hesitation, kissing her with an assurance that was just as honest as the rest of him. More than just a simple kiss, no matter how sweet and thrilling.

  Affirmation.

  He pulled back slightly, his hands tightening at her waist for a final, deeper kiss. When he broke away it was to look her in the eye. “Just so you know.”

  Sam shook her head, dazed and trying to pull herself back to the moment. Hiding in the yard, Scalpucci’s men inside the house, women in danger, Sam on her own—

  No, not so much on her own.

  She took a deep breath. “Look, I’ve got to…I can’t go in there like this. I’ve got to—”

  “Hide,” he said, a familiar note of dryness in his voice—except this time she could hear the affection that went with it.

  “Yes,” she agreed. “I’ve got to hide.”

  There she was. The Sam he’d been looking for and she was about to go away.

  Jethro wanted to go bang his head on the smooth bark of the nearby maple tree, or to fling himself back on the cold ground with an arm over his face, long enough to absorb the events of this strangest day of his life. Until he could truly believe what he’d seen in these last few moments—and what he’d felt. Manly reactions all.

  He found he still had his hands on Sam’s hips, those glorious curvy hips that seemed so unlikely on a woman so slender. He tightened his hold, knowing that Sam— this Sam—was about to go away. That her strong chin and wide jaw and fierce eyebrows would blend into the less noticeable public-faced Sam, leaving him only her sunlight-honey eyes.

  So he took one last look, baffled by this sudden surge of feeling for a woman who not only deceived others freely—had deceived him—but who lived her whole life this way. Somehow. Fooling people but not cameras…she turned herself into a product of her own mind, and made others believe it.

  Holy freakin’ superhero.

  And that was the whole point, wasn’t it? Hadn’t he always wanted to believe in a superhero who could and would stand up for the way things should be? And here she was. She just happened to get the job done with a frighteningly effective mask of lies.

  But she was doing it. She was helping women like his sister…doing what Jethro himself hadn’t been able to get done.

  “Okay,” he said, drinking in one long, last look at her. Shaggy hair in need of a cut, copper undertones visible even in this light. A smattering of freckles to go with it. He held her gaze, and he nodded. And when he let his focus widen, she was back to what she’d been. Attractive but less remarkable. More conventional and less noticeable. Even the feel of her changed, the angle between waist and hip easing. She’d put on her disguise, and accomplished it so thoroughly that his mind believed it down to every sense.

  She’d hidden her vulnerability just as neatly. When she looked at him her face was tough and her expression impenetrable…all business. “I think I can get in the back,” she told him. “They won’t see me, that’s for sure. But it could get noisy. I need some cover.”

  And Jethro, never having called on himself to be devious, said blankly, “How?”

  She grinned. “It’s not so hard. Come knocking at the door as a neighbor because you’ve seen their lights on, assume they’ve been kept up by the party, and rant and rave about young k
ids these days and how the police have been called.”

  “Hey,” he said, uncertain. “I don’t think I’m old enough to rant and rave.”

  She saw his doubt, grew sharp at the sight. “Still too noble to lie?”

  “No!” Well, maybe. “I mean…I just don’t think I can.”

  “Jeth,” she said, a little too patiently, “we’re running out of time. We might be too late already. We don’t know what’s going on in there. I can do this, but everyone in that house will be safer if I have your help.”

  And she was right, too. “The van,” he blurted. “Maybe it’s got an alarm. I can set it off. Or if it doesn’t have an alarm, it must have a horn. Even if they don’t come out to check, it should give you cover.”

  “Why, Jeth,” Sam said, and batted her eyelashes at him in the darkness. “How sly you can be when you put your mind to it.” And then, more seriously, “At least one of them will probably come out to check. Don’t hang around.” She dug into her pocket and pulled out a tiny gun, an automatic in a tailored holster; she held it out to him.

  He took it in disbelief, fingers running over the leather. “Is this real?”

  “It’s real enough. It’s a mousegun. It’s got eight rounds and there’s one already in the chamber. There’s no safety—that’s why the holster.” She tapped the trigger through the holster. “Pull the trigger, and you’re going to get a bang. And if you need it, don’t screw around. Jam it right up close before they even know you have it and empty the damn thing. Don’t expect someone the size of the guy we put down at the last house to take an instant dive—depending how the shots are placed, he’ll still be able to do plenty of damage to you if you stick around and let him.”

  He held it back out to her. “Maybe you should just—”

  “Take it. You’re going to be out here alone. Once I get inside, I’ll have the house guardian on my side.” She looked at the house, at the van…back at Jethro. “We’ve got to move. You ready?”

  “For this? Never.” He shook his head, barely able to believe what he was about to do. “I guess I’ll just fake it.”

  “Exactly,” she said with satisfaction, and quite abruptly disappeared. Abruptly and literally. Sam in the bushes…Sam gone. He thought he felt the touch of her hand on his; he definitely heard her murmur that he should give her a moment to reach the house before he started his noise.

  Holy freakin’ fakin’ it.

  Chapter 6

  Sam only hoped Jeth could bring himself to join her world long enough to provide the distraction she’d need.

  Of course, she also hoped that they hadn’t delayed too long, that Scalpucci was so cocky he hadn’t brought the manpower he’d need once Sam got into the middle of things….

  She had no illusions about her ability to tackle these men. She was scrappy in a fight and she knew all the street moves she’d ever need, but she was small and even regular workouts didn’t provide her with the upper body strength to match the steroid-enhanced creatures with whom Scalpucci surrounded himself.

  On the other hand, she wasn’t above cheating. Hell, she didn’t think twice about cheating. And the men in that house would find it almost impossible to hit a moving, invisible target. If she took out the lights, they might not even realize she was anything more—or less—than a quick opponent in the dark.

  But before that, she wanted the women out of there—both the refugees and the house guardian. And even then…if she got them out cleanly, then she could avoid the whole confrontational thing altogether.

  Sam found the back door, a closed and locked half-glass door that she could have picked had she brought her tools but would instead sacrifice to the cause as soon as Jeth made his noise. The backyard spread out behind her, fully landscaped and crammed with the foliage of a mature neighborhood in a city full of green space. Plenty of places for the women to take cover on the way out. Sheers covered the half-glass door, giving her only a fuzzy view of the interior. Lights blazed in the kitchen directly beyond this door, but no one occupied it. Beyond that stood a small dining room—the same room she’d seen from the window beside the house.

  There the women had been gathered, though Sam could only see glimpses—the flash of movement, a faint shriek of protest.

  Bad men. You deserve whatever happens here tonight.

  It made her want to glide up to them unseen and exact the kind of revenge that would put her in jail if anyone ever identified her. To use her skills in exactly the way that would horrify Jeth, so genuine and naive in his black-and-white world where bad things didn’t happen if you tried hard enough to stop them simply because that’s the way it should be.

  A chameleon she might be, but stupid…not quite. Criminal…not quite.

  Sometimes Jeth’s way was right. She could lie to everyone else, but to herself she had to tell the truth.

  So the revenge…another day, maybe. Or a different kind of revenge. For now she’d get these women out as fast as she could, and if it meant scrapping, it meant scrapping. But no side trips. No distractions. Just a pure break-out and run.

  Come on, Jeth. Sam waited poised by the back door, her elbow cocked and ready to take out the bottom corner pane of glass. Fake it if you have to, but fake it now.

  And finally, a car alarm split through the subliminal thump of music…oddly, not quite close enough to be the van. Sam took the moment anyway, tapping the glass with her elbow just hard enough to crack it, then sliding her hand back up in her jacket sleeve to pick at the shards with her already tender hands. Just enough to reach in and—

  Another car alarm went off. And he must have been getting the hang of it, for almost immediately a third alarm joined in—and then another. Sam grinned to herself as she flipped the deadbolt and slid the chain lock out of place and then released the doorknob lock. No one came rushing at her—as near as she could tell, at least two men had gone to the front door, and though Scalpucci still stood in the dining room with Gretchen in a cruel hold, he’d also turned toward the front of the house.

  Sam slid inside, clothed in her unseen guise, reassessing the situation with every step. They were all big, like the man at the last house. Too big for her to handle in numbers, though if Scalpucci had been there alone…

  But he wasn’t. And she didn’t have the leeway to try for cleverness; best strategy would be to go in fast, come out fast. Run away. After that she could call the police, holding out a faint hope that Scalpucci would in some way pay for his actions.

  The house guardian sat at the end of the dining room table. With no finesse and nothing to lose, Sam waited until Scalpucci shouted something at the front of the house and then reached in to pluck at the woman’s sleeve from behind, hissing a warning. The woman startled and then froze, and Sam had to speak up against the fifth whooping car alarm when she said, “Help’s here. Grab them up and go out the back—it’s open.”

  The refuge guardians weren’t chosen for their looks or their sweet dispositions. This woman may or may not have suspected there’d been no visible movement behind her, but she knew how to prioritize her reactions. She kicked one woman under the table—Jeth’s sister?—and snapped her fingers at the other. The frightened women only stared stupidly at her as the guardian gestured over her shoulder to the freedom of the open back door.

  But the first woman…Jeth’s sister had his hair and his nose and though she also had a hell of a bruise on her face and an arm in a restrictive sling, she still had some of his determination. She quite matter-of-factly pushed her chair back and walked out of the room, and the car alarms covered every step of her movement. Sam stepped aside undetected to let her pass and then returned to her spot by the door. Scalpucci and another man bellowed a few terse words at each other across the house and through the front door. Suspicious, oh yes. But Sam had her eye on the light switches, and thank goodness for that. For while the second woman still stared at the rising house guardian in catatonic fright, Scalpucci turned to look at both women with instant fury.

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nbsp; Sam hit the switch, plunging the kitchen into darkness and bursting out from cover without her unseen guise—a guise that was of no use when she needed to interact with people. She darted into the lighted dining room and grabbed the guardian, a woman older and of a size with Sam, to propel her back into the kitchen. “Run, dammit!” She hunted and found the dining room light switch, slapping it off even as she dragged the frightened, frozen refugee from her place at the table.

  Finally, the woman ran, shrieking all the way out as if the noise alone propelled her; it created an excruciating dissonance with the car alarms and finally faded.

  That left Sam and Scalpucci and his thoroughly—and freshly—battered wife. Even in the darkness, Scalpucci pinned his gaze on Sam. “It won’t work,” he said, nearly shouting to overcome the car alarms. “I have what I want—and I’m going to do what I want.”

  Sam hovered at the edge of action, ready to grab any opportunity to free Gretchen. All but one of the alarms abruptly stopped; soon enough Scalpucci’s two men would return. “Let me guess,” she said flatly. “You want to wreck the underground so badly that there’s no chance it’ll rebuild.”

  “Something like that.” He aimed a cocky sneer of a grin her way. “I think I’ve got a pretty good start, don’t you?”

  “Actually, I think you’ve already failed.” Sam gathered herself in the darkness, aiming to go unseen and launch for Gretchen at the same time—no finesse, just a snatch and run. Scalpucci would know she was on the move, but he’d convince himself he’d lost her in the darkness and then she’d be waiting to take him down with a simple foot stuck in his path. More Three Stooges material than superhero stuff…but just as effective.

  Except…

  Light flooded the room, making her blink. Scalpucci gave her a smug, superior look. “Dumb bitch. Did you think I couldn’t find the other light switch?”

  The other light switch. Of course there would be one. “No,” Sam said, “I didn’t. I figured you for a real dim bulb.”