The Law of Nines

Alex didn’t know what he had been expecting, but it was nothing like this. He couldn’t have imagined such a thing.

He had to remind himself to breathe. “I can’t imagine anyone being that inhuman, that barbaric.”

“Then I won’t tax your imagination by telling you the things they do that are worse.” Her brown eyes turned to focus on him. “You think about that before you let yourself get caught.”

Alex hadn’t been thinking about not getting caught. He’d been thinking only about not letting them catch her. That was the thought that truly terrified him.

He finally took a full breath. “Jax, I’m sorry. . . . I shouldn’t have asked such a question.”

He wiped a hand back across his face. He felt hot and a little sick to his stomach.

“I didn’t mean to sound angry at you for asking,” she said. “I’m angry at the people who do these things. You were right to ask—after all, it’s you they’re interested in. You need to know what these people are really like. You need to understand the consequences of hesitation.”

Alex clenched his jaw as his revulsion began to melt into smoldering rage.

Her expression softened into regret. “I’m sorry I have to bring such things into your life, Alex. I’m sorry that I—”

“You didn’t bring them into my life,” he said as he held up a hand to stop her. “The truth is the truth. Only a real friend would warn me about the kind of people who are after me.”

She smiled sympathetically, relieved that he understood.

“Now,” he said, “let’s get in there and see if we can find out what these bastards want from my world.”

28.

WITH A CASUAL BUT CAREFUL LOOK, Jax scanned the entire area before opening her door. He saw her appraise the same older couple walking up from behind them that he’d noticed in the rearview mirror. Jax returned a smile when the couple smiled as they passed by. He noted that she trusted no one, not even an old couple shuffling along the sidewalk.

He wondered how she could summon a smile. He couldn’t.

Alex tossed his jacket in the back seat and then locked the Cherokee. He checked the back hatch to make sure that it was locked as well. He didn’t like leaving a gun in the truck that a thief could discover and steal, but he had no choice. Even though he was licensed to carry a concealed weapon, they still couldn’t be taken into a mental institution.

He wondered what he was going to do if they ended up having to leave the state. While he was licensed to carry in Nebraska, that license wasn’t valid in other places, especially Boston, where the law took a dim view of people protecting themselves.

Alex had a very clear-cut belief about his fundamental right to his own life. He didn’t think that he should have to die just because a criminal wanted to take his life. He had only one life and he believed that he had the right to defend it, simple as that. Ben had taught him how.

In light of the kind of people they were up against, the kind of animals Jax had just told him about, he knew that he would rather risk facing a gun charge than be without a means of protecting himself, and more than that, protecting Jax. He wasn’t willing to die because of the dogmatic principles of imperious public officials. It was his life, not theirs.

From bits and pieces Jax had revealed, he knew that Cain would love nothing more than to have her in his clutches. Alex knew that if they ever got their hands on her they would do those things that she’d said he couldn’t even imagine. Whatever those things were, he didn’t want to know. He was already angry enough.

The limbs of the maple and oak trees lining the residential streets whipped back and forth in the gusty wind, filling the bright day with a rush of noise. Jax had to use one hand to hold her hair back off her face as they made their way quickly along the sidewalk. She used the other to hold on to his arm, playing the part of his fiancée.

The storms had left the ground littered with leaves so that it looked a little like autumn, except that the leaves were green instead of bright colors. Here and there limbs that had been torn off during the storms lay on lawns and at the sides of the street. The air had an odd, dry feel to it, as if hinting at the looming change of season.

Jax silently eyed the imposing front façade of Mother of Roses as they walked down Thirteenth Street. Many of the people climbing the broad bank of steps on their way to visit patients carried flowers or small boxes wrapped in bright paper and decorated with ribbons.

As they continued past the front entrance, without turning up the steps, Jax frowned questioningly up at him. “Family visiting the ninth floor can go in the back,” he told her. “It’s easier.”

“The ninth floor,” she repeated in a flat tone.

He knew what she was thinking. “I’m afraid so.”