Mistaken Identity (Saved By Desire 3) (19 page)

“Gone.”

“Damn it,” Gillespie swore and pushed out of his chair.

Jess snorted disparagingly.

“God, what kind of idiots are you?” she demanded scathingly. “You have just caught yourself a victim, but don’t have anybody around to give a damn. You have just lost the person you most probably should have kept instead.”

“Shut up,” Gillespie snarled.

He spun on his heel and stormed toward her. She suspected he intended to hit her and braced herself as best she could. Thankfully, when he was about half-way across the room, he seemed to have second thoughts. Instead, he threw a furious glare at Ball.

“Let’s go. Leave her here. We will come back for her later,” Gillespie ordered as he stalked toward the door.

“Wait!” Jess protested. “You cannot leave me here.”

Both men ignored her as they left the house. Jess listened to the slam of the door and found herself encased in silence. She didn’t know which was worse; being held captive by someone, or being ignored by everybody.

“Help!” she shouted. “Ben? Marcus? Help!”

When nobody appeared, Jess knew she was in for a long wait and allowed her tears to fall.

Marcus watched Gillespie and Ball, for want of better and more accurate names he could call them, slam their way out of the house. It was clear that they had searched the property and found it to be empty. He just had to wonder where Jess was.

“What do we do now?”

Marcus sighed. Asking questions was all Ben seemed to do whenever they were out together. But at least the lad was asking and not just ploughing his way into any dangerous situation they came across.

“Don’t make any sudden moves. These men are ruthless.”

Ben nodded, but Marcus had already started to move forward. He had no sooner taken two steps than a faint cry broke the silence. He froze and listened carefully for several moments, but didn’t hear it again.

“It must be woodland creatures,” Marcus murmured to Ben. “Come on.”

Several moments later, at the back of Mr Grant’s house, a loud bang echoed through the trees. The branch directly above Ben’s head exploded, covering his head and shoulders with splinters.

“Get down,” Marcus ordered.

Once on the floor, he drew his gun and returned fire.

Several returning shots ricocheted around the trees. The noise of the guns firing echoed sinisterly around them. Several birds screeched their protest and took to the skies, but Ben couldn’t see them. He couldn’t see much of anything except for Marcus’ back, and he daren’t tear his gaze away from that.

“Do you see them?” Joe whispered as he came alongside them.

“There is one over there by those trees to the left. Gillespie is on his way toward us with Ball. They are both armed,” Marcus replied quietly.

“I think they are already here,” Joe whispered.

“Smithers and the magistrate are around as well,” Ben replied.

Marcus cursed. He wondered if tonight could get any worse.

It had started out wonderfully but had gone downhill rapidly when he had woken up and realised he had overslept by a good hour.

The only positive thing to come out of this situation was that he knew Jess was safe. Everybody who posed a potential risk to her was now stomping through the woods firing at him. He now wished he had forced Ben to remain in the scullery. Just the thought of having to explain to Jess that her brother had been shot gave him the chills.

He realised then that Ben didn’t have a weapon on him and was, as a result, incredibly vulnerable.

“Can you see if you can get back to the house, and check on Jess? Stay with her, Ben. Make sure nobody gets into that house. Lock all of the doors and close all of the shutters. Don’t let anybody in, no matter what they say to you.” He stopped and ducked when another flurry of gun shots carved splinters out of the trees around them. “Use the trees to protect you. Move when I shoot at them. Hurry. I will come to you when I have finished here. ”

Before Ben could move, several more shots were fired which carved grooves in the trees on either side of them. Marcus took aim and returned as many shots as he could. Even though they were encased in darkness, he was rewarded with a faint cry of pain when someone was hit.

“Over there,” Ben whispered, and pointed to a dark shadow moving steadily toward them.

Marcus spied the target and nodded. He suspected from the outline that it was Gillespie. There was nobody else in the village that tall.

Taking aim, he fired off a shot and watched the man jump back. With little light to see properly, he had no idea whether the man had been wounded or not. Either way, before Gillespie could advance any further, Marcus took aim again.

“Damn it,” he cursed as he studied the now empty space.

“I can’t go, Marcus,” Ben warned. “Jess is in the house. She doesn’t venture out at night. She is safe. You need me here.”

“He is right,” Joe bit out. “We need help.”

Marcus nodded at Ben. “Alright. Keep an eye out for any sign of movement.”

Peering out from behind a tree, Marcus took aim again and exchanged fire with a gunman now hidden only a few feet away.

“We need to get out of here,” he gasped when one bullet whizzed straight past his ear.

He hauled Ben to his feet and followed Joe through the undergrowth toward the main road. Rather than break their cover and make themselves a visible target, they stayed within the trees while they decided what to do.

“They don’t want us going to Mr Grant’s house.” Joe’s voice was full of determination to defy them.

“They have a lot to hide; that’s why. We can’t go into it now, or we will be boxing ourselves up for them to come in and pick us off at random,” Marcus warned.

“Do you know why they have chosen tonight to launch their attack?” Joe gasped as he fired into the trees.

“I think they may have gotten wind that someone has been searching their rooms. We were careful, but may have missed something somewhere. Maybe they have done what they wanted to do, and it is time to move on. I don’t know. I do know that they aren’t going to leave Smothey free men. Not if I have my way,” Marcus declared.

“Let’s get this lot subdued and then we can go and check on Jess. There isn’t much else we can do right now, except follow them wherever they try to go,” Joe whispered. “Barnaby hasn’t appeared in time to be of any use to us. We are on our own. It is best to use the cover of darkness to get into the Grant house and see for ourselves what they are protecting so fiercely,” Joe reasoned. “Come on. We are losing valuable time standing here.”

He didn’t wait for Marcus and Ben to follow him; he just knew they would. They didn’t get far, though. As they ventured deeper into the woods, they were pinned down by gunfire from several guns aimed at them from all directions. Shots rang out around them; one after the other, after the other. It made going anywhere impossible.

“Get back!” Marcus shouted at Ben when he tried to peer around a tree.

Ben stepped out of the way just in time for Joe to get a clear shot of the man he suspected was Lloyd, just a few feet away. The man went down without a murmur.

“Don’t you dare move,” he snarled at Ben, who jumped in alarm.

Removing his knife from his boot, he re-loaded his gun and went to find another target.

Jess sat and listened to strange popping noises coming from outside. She had no doubt that someone was firing guns somewhere. Unfortunately, there could be little doubt that it had something to do with Marcus and the men who had just left.

Just the thought that Marcus; the man who had done such scandalous, yet loving things to her earlier, could be shot at, or even shot, left her feeling sick. Helpless to do anything useful, she began to pray that both Marcus and Ben would still be alive in the morning.

While he knew what he was about to do was a matter of life and death, constant in the back of his mind was his desperate need to return to Jess. She needed his protection right now. He had to get back to her to keep her safe. After everything they had shared, he couldn’t just and die on her, or allow anything to happen to her. He wanted a life by her side. He wanted a family, a home, a future. As long as he had Jess, he didn’t care what life threw at him. He would get through it because he had a very good reason to do so. Just contemplating what life would be like if she weren't around left him deeply disturbed. His world would end. It was as simple as that.

He loved her. Totally, completely, and unconditionally, adored the woman. She was as essential to him as the air in his lungs. He needed her. Just as much as she needed him.

“Let’s get this job done,” he growled, with more ruthless determination than he had ever felt in his entire life.

He forced himself to forget about everything around him, including Ben, and Jess and focused on what he needed to do. All of his years of training came to the fore in a heartbeat. Without uttering a word, he motioned to Joe and swiftly melted into the trees.

Without a target to aim at, Gillespie and his gang ceased firing.

Silence settled over the woods for several moments while Marcus waited for Joe to get into position, and the gunmen tried to find them.

Ben stared in the direction of a strange sound within trees. When he looked back at Marcus, he realised he was alone. To his horror, he then noticed that Marcus’ friend, Joe, had also vanished. He wanted to get up and run, but everybody had guns and were firing randomly into the darkness. He couldn’t risk that he would be injured.

With no other option available to him, Ben settled as deeply into the base of a tree as he could, curled up into a tight ball, and began to pray.

The sporadic gunfire lasted for another half hour while Joe and Marcus circled their quarry, picking off men as they went.

Marcus came up behind Mr Ball, who was hunkered down behind a pile of dried wood. He didn’t know what hit him when Marcus dug the handle of his gun hard into the back of the man’s head. He crumpled without a murmur. Marcus caught him before he hit the floor, and lay him down quietly before he secured his hands behind his back. Then he tugged the man’s shirt up over his head and used the sleeves wrapped together to tie into a binding to cover his mouth. Assured that Ball was going nowhere, and was now unable to see, or call for help, Marcus shoved him into bushes and covered him over.

Then he turned his attention to hunting down the next man.

Capturing Brammall was considerably harder. The man gave the outward appearance of being effeminate, but Marcus suspected that he had served time in the army. Nobody learnt skills like Brammall had while living in the back streets of London. The man moved with a panther-like silence that made him a considerably bigger threat than Carruthers. He stomped through the undergrowth with all the grace of a wild buffalo.

Unfortunately for Brammall, the skills were there, but they hadn’t been honed to perfection over recent months like Marcus’ had. Age also had a very large part to play in that the man was clearly not particularly well sighted enough to see in the dark.

Marcus used this, and speed, to his advantage to dodge from one shadow to another, and circle closer. Joe played his part in equal measure. By playing moving shadows the way they did, they knew the men they were approaching would get the impression that there was more than just two of them. Not only that but they would become disorientated and confused, and with those two negative emotions would come frustration and doubt.

Sure enough, panic set in, and the men began to shoot randomly into the darkness again, but this time, there was no particular direction to their firing.

Carruthers got taken down while reloading his gun. Once he was also safely secured and stashed in the undergrowth, they turned their attention to Abernathy, who they found crouched behind a thick oak tree.

Tapping him on his shoulder, Abernathy immediately spun around. He didn’t see the fist Marcus landed on him. The man’s eyes rolled into the back of his head. He got caught before he hit the ground.

“If we keep going like this we are going to run out of hiding places,” Joe mumbled as he helped stash Abernathy out of sight.

Marcus grinned and nodded toward the house.

“There is one we don’t have to hide in that house up there.”

Joe nodded. “I have seen him. He keeps peering out from behind the shutters.”

“I think it is the lad, Smithers.” Marcus glanced around them. “Where is Ben?”

He felt bad for having left the lad in the middle of a gun battle, but there was no safe way out of the woods.

“The cavalry has arrived,” Joe muttered. “About time.”

He nodded to Barnaby, who shook his head at them and motioned that someone was following them. He lifted his gun, but Marcus waved him off, fearing that it might be Ben.

Sure enough, seconds later, Ben appeared behind them.

“Is it over?” He asked cautiously.

Marcus shook his head.

“No, we have one in the house, and Gillespie is still at large, and Lloyd, the magistrate. I have reason to believe he is Sayers.”

The mention of the gangster’s name was enough for Kieran, Connor, Jacob, and Callum, to all emerge out of the dense undergrowth and join them. Marcus briefly brought them up to date on what had happened since he had written to Barnaby.

“Well, where is this boarding house? Is anyone there?” Barnaby asked.

Marcus was indecisive. He desperately wanted to go to the Grant residence to see what it was that Sayers and his men were protecting so fiercely, but he needed to see that Jess was alright. He wouldn’t be able to concentrate until he knew she was safe.

“Jess,” Marcus bit out. “I need to see Jess. Come on.”

“Where is Sayers?” Joe asked with a frown. “I did see another man stomping around in the woods, but he vanished not long after the firing started.”

Marcus swore. “They were trying to pin us down while he got away. This is Sayers we are discussing. They will protect him.”

The men quickly organised themselves and left Callum to gather up the captives while Connor and Jacob guarded Grant’s house and its rather curious occupant.

Marcus, Barnaby, Ben, Joe, and Kieran, all raced across the village toward the boarding house.

“You stay with me, Ben,” Marcus ordered as they approached the house. He turned to his colleagues. “This is Ben. He has been invaluable in helping me search the house, and gather information on Sayers and his gang.”

“Can you use one of these without taking your head off?” Barnaby demanded as he pulled a second gun out of his cloak pocket.

Ben nodded and grinned. “I live in the country. I have been using guns since I was eight.”

“Good, then here. Make sure you don’t shoot one of us or your sister.”

Ben took the gun from him and looked considerably happier now that he wasn’t so vulnerably unarmed.

“Still stay with me, Ben. Gillespie is Sayers; the worst criminal in London. Don’t challenge him. If you do have to shoot him, then target his legs or arms, not his body. He will use his mouth to abuse you, but just ignore whatever he says. Don’t rise to his bait. Clip him, disable and disarm him but, whatever you do, make sure he stays alive. We are going to get Jess, and go through those rooms again. I have a feeling Sayers may have to return to the boarding house to try to look for those gems, especially now he knows he can’t go back to the grant house.”

“Where are they?” Barnaby panted as he raced with Marcus through the village.

“He won’t find them,” Ben assured him. “I will not have them in the same room as Jess, so I moved them.”

“Where are they?” Marcus growled.

“Hidden,” Ben replied.

They slammed to a halt outside a solitary house in the furthest, quietest corner of the village. At any other time, it would have been quite pretty. Surrounded by shadows and menace as it was, it was too isolated to bring any succour to anyone who looked upon it. Barnaby shivered and shook his head, curious to see what this Jess looks like.

“We will go around the back,” Marcus advised.

“Someone has just passed the dining room window, but I don’t think it was Jess. She isn’t that tall,” Ben whispered.

Everyone watched the window for several moments. Sure enough, a tall, dark shadow appeared and disappeared as a man paced around.

“Sayers is in the house. He has Jess,” Marcus snarled and felt his entire world shudder to a halt.

Jess swallowed against the rising tide of bile in her throat, and watched Mr Gillespie, or rather Sayers, pace backward and forward in front of the window. At first glance, she thought it was rain trickling down his forehead. But, when he reached up to brush it off, and she witnessed the violent shaking of his hand, she suspected it was sweat. The man was worried about something.

She had never been so scared in her life, but she was helpless to do anything except wait to see how everything turned out.

“Who has been in this house?” Gillespie demanded.

“Well, everyone you know, me, and Marcus,” Jess replied.

“What about that brother of yours?”

Jess stared blankly at him for a moment. She watched him run a frantic hand through his hair and tried desperately to come up with a lie. When she couldn’t come up with anything credible, she blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

“He is at his lover’s house in Retterton. He goes there sometimes. He will be back in time to light the fires and get everything ready for breakfast. He won’t be back for hours yet.”

“You were in that room. You!” Gillespie snapped.

“Which room?” She wondered if something in his mind had snapped and he had lost all rationality.

“That hole in the wall you call a bedroom. This dump should have been condemned years ago,” Gillespie snapped. “You were in that stable up there. What did you do with them?”

“Do with what?” Jess cried. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Tears sprang into her eyes when his hand slapped across her cheek with painful ferocity.  Her cry was loud when he yanked her head back by her hair and shoved his face into hers.

“Where are they?”

“I don’t know what you mean.” It was the truth; she didn’t. “Who? I don’t know what you are talking about.”

Gillespie suddenly released her, uttered a vicious curse, and stalked toward the window again. Rather than stand before it to stare out across the garden, he stood to one side and peered around a half-open shutter.

“I need to get out of here,” Sayers muttered to himself.

“Not today, Gillespie,” Marcus drawled from the doorway.

Jess jerked and turned to look at him, and immediately sagged with relief.

Her heart burgeoned with love at the sight of him standing so tall and proud, and blessedly unharmed. He looked so dark and dangerous that it was difficult to associate him with the man whose bed she shared. The Marcus she had slept with had been so incredibly tender, loving and gentle that she had felt cosseted and the most precious person in the world. The man beside her now was sinister. He looked at her, but there was no recognition in his eyes. She might have been a veritable stranger to him, and that worried her.

“Marcus?” she asked hesitantly.

She flinched with fear when he seemed to look through her, and turned an icy glare toward her captor.

“Or should I say, Sayers?”

Marcus surreptitiously studied Jess. He had seen Gillespie hit her. It was why he hadn’t lingered in the hallway any longer. It was clear that Sayers was starting to panic, and was focusing his worry on Jess. It was imperative Marcus got Jess out of the house before Sayers did something serious, like pulling his gun on her.

The last thing any member of the Star Elite expected was to bring the man down so early on in the investigation. Terrence Sayers had always been as elusive as he was ruthless. On the many occasions they had chased him in London, he had vanished just as quickly as he had appeared. Today, they had been handed a golden opportunity and intended to make full use of it.

Determined to get the job over with, Marcus focused his attention on capturing his cornered quarry.

“I think the greyed out hair is an excellent ruse, but it must have been a nightmare in the rain. After all, the powders are, unless I am mistaken, make-up, which will run when it comes into contact with water. Not only that, but your paunch doesn’t move as well as you do. I have no doubt that is padding and will detach completely. It is time for you to understand that the game is up, Sayers.”

Sayers turned to face him; his lip curled derisively.

“You think you know it all, don’t you? Well, I am not Sayers. I am his brother. Sayers is back in London looking after his network there. He never left London at all.”

Marcus shook his head. “Oh well, I am sure you will do just as nicely.”

He knew Sayers was lying. Extensive investigations had already taken place into Sayers’ background. He had no siblings anywhere, hidden or otherwise.