The Perfect Husband - Lisa Gardner [102]
His lips curved back in a snarl. He held his wounded arm against his ribs and kicked hard with his left leg. He connected solidly with Beckett’s kneecap, hearing the other man’s winded grunt and feeling the blood lust grow.
He lashed out again, stomping a rock-hard stomach. Quick pivot and turn, and he smashed his foot into Beckett’s upper arm. The bat dropped to the floor. J.T. closed in for the kill.
Just as he lunged forward, however, Beckett hooked his feet and he flew through the air. He landed hard, his hands too numb to catch him. The oxygen left his lungs in a painful whoosh, his chest filled with fiery red ants. His eyes saw spots and his bruised hip roared with pain.
He kept moving, instinct yelling roll roll roll or die.
He staggered to his feet, trying to sight Beckett. The world spun sickeningly. He couldn’t get his balance. He couldn’t find his gun.
Shit, he was in trouble. Focus, dammit, focus.
His blurry gaze finally found Beckett, a tall, pale shadow that looked alien and ghostlike. It took J.T. a minute to understand why. Beckett was hairless, no head hair, no eyebrows, no nothing. His eyes seemed to have receded in his face, smaller and more penetrating without brows to highlight and soften. A serpent’s head, that’s what it looked like.
The two men stared at each other.
J.T. held his arm against his side. Blood trickled down Beckett’s shoulder.
Beckett moved. He clenched his teeth in blatant frustration and leapt for the window. J.T. lurched after him.
At the last minute, however, Beckett turned, one foot swung over the windowsill.
“Theresa,” he said simply. “By now I wouldn’t think she has any oxygen left.”
J.T. halted.
Beckett smiled. “You fool. I had her for years. I can tell you, she’s not worth it.”
“You’re dead.”
“She’s mine. Help her and you become mine too. Just ask Difford when you see him again.”
Beckett slipped out the window, and there was nothing J.T. could do that wouldn’t cost Tess her life. He recovered his gun from the floor, and with his left arm clutched against his ribs raced for the living room.
Tess was handcuffed to the coffee table with a plastic cooking bag plastered against her skull.
J.T. unsheathed the knife from his ankle, slit the plastic bag, and peeled it back from her face. Her head lolled to the side, her pale skin tinged with blue.
“Tess, Tess, come on, come on!”
Her head fell to her chest.
He slapped her hard and was rewarded by a sharp intake of breath. She was alive. He’d screwed up, but somehow she was alive. He rocked her against his chest. He cursed his own stupidity. He got down to business.
They had to leave. Now.
“Jim,” Tess whispered hoarsely. Her eyes were glazed.
“He left. But he might come back. Can you walk?”
“I tried to shoot him. I raised my gun, but—”
“Shh, pull yourself together. Come on, Tess.”
He raised the coffee table, slid the other half of the handcuffs free, and dragged Tess to her feet. She leaned against him heavily, still gasping for air.
“Okay. You breathe. I’ll run. Here we go.”
He pulled her out the front door, and the night slapped them like a vengeful woman, cold and stinging against their cheeks.
Run, it seemed to hiss in their ears.
J.T. didn’t argue.
“HE’S DEAD.”
Marion glanced up from the fire, her cheeks unusually rosy from the mesmerizing flames. She sat on the edge of a white leather stool. Italian leather, very good. She’d picked it out herself and the couch and recliner that went with it. They fit the living room well, a minimalist motif of white leather and frameless glass. She’d always liked this room in her upscale Virginia town house.
After the warm earth tones and vivid greens and reds of Arizona, however, she suddenly found the white overwhelming. And she resented that fiercely.
“Did you hear me?” Roger stood stiffly in the doorway, as if he couldn’t decide whether it was safe to enter or not. She looked at him coolly, not giving him the slightest expression that might aid his decision.
She knocked back the last of the brandy she’d been sipping.