Killing Time Read online

  Glancing up, she caught an expression of patience and skepticism on his face, and she sighed. “You don’t believe me. Not even the DNA scanner has convinced you, or the Reskin.”

  “Reskin comes close,” he admitted, rising to a standing position and holding his hand down for her. “But get real; how can I swallow this, hook, line, and sinker?”

  “I haven’t asked you to swallow any hooks,” she muttered resentfully, but she put her hand in his and let him pull her to her feet.

  The light under the canopy of trees seemed suddenly brighter, and a low, almost inaudible buzzing filled the air. Frowning, Knox released her hand and pressed a finger to his ear. “What’s that sound? Can you hear it?”

  Nikita held up a hand to silence him, turning in a circle as she tried to locate the direction the buzzing was coming from. “Get down,” she said urgently as she grabbed her laser pen. She dropped to the ground, flat on her stomach. “Get down!” she yelled at him, when he was slow to obey. She grabbed the boot nearest her and jerked it backward, toppling him; he would have landed on his face if he hadn’t twisted, catlike, to take the fall on his shoulder.

  “Face down!” She put her left hand on the back of his head and ground his face into the dirt, half covering him with her body as she ducked her own head down and put her arm over her eyes.

  She saw the white brilliance of the flash against her closed eyelids, even with her head tucked down, felt every cell in her body prickle as the energy washed over her. Static electricity danced over her skin, played in her hair. She felt what seemed like the briefest moment of immobility; then as the effect began to fade she forced herself to raise her head, which felt as if it weighed three times as much as normal. Everything seemed to be in slow motion, every movement took enormous effort. Beneath her, Knox was stirring, trying to rise, his head coming up.

  Shimmering before them, solidifying, was the figure of a man.

  As luck would have it, he had landed with his back to them. Nikita had a split second to recognize the weaponry in his hand. “FBI!” she rapped out. “Drop your weapon.”

  Slowly he raised both hands, then just as slowly turned his head to look over his shoulder at her. “Agent Stover,” he said. “I’m Agent Luttrell.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. Drop your weapon, turn half a revolution to your left, and use your left hand to remove your ID card.” She didn’t recognize him, which by itself didn’t mean anything, but after everything that had gone wrong with this mission, she wasn’t about to take any chances.

  Knox lifted slightly beneath her, his right arm moving, and she realized he had drawn his own weapon, but with her lying half on his right side, he couldn’t maneuver properly. If he moved much at one time, or too fast, he would throw her off balance, and from the tight control he employed, she knew he’d realized that. He shifted again, and when he dragged his left arm out, she saw he’d switched his weapon to his off hand.

  “Easy,” the man said, slowly stooping to rest his weapon on the ground. He began turning, his balance shifting to his left foot. His powerful thigh muscles tensed . . . there was a second when she couldn’t see his right arm . . . then he was a blur of movement as he whipped around, a thin line of green light shooting out from his right hand.

  She fired an instant before he did. The laser hit him at navel level and ripped upward, the stench of burning flesh filling the air. His shot burned into the ground inches from Knox’s outstretched hand. The man dropped where he stood, his legs jerking spasmodically for a moment before they relaxed forever.

  In the thick silence that fell, Nikita felt the quick lift and fall of Knox’s breathing, felt her own heartbeat pounding, her pulse throbbing in her throat and wrists.

  “Holy shit,” Knox said, moving her aside and getting to his feet in one lithe action. He approached the dead man cautiously, holding his weapon two-handed and keeping it trained on the body, easing forward until he could kick the laser away from the man’s outstretched hand.

  “What other weapons is he likely to have?” he asked Nikita without looking at her.

  “I don’t know,” she said dully. Nausea roiled in her stomach, hot and greasy. She felt herself break into a cold sweat. She’d never killed anyone before, never even discharged any of her weapons except in training or practice. She stared at the man stretched out on his back, his head turned slightly to the side and his eyes open as if he were staring at her.

  He couldn’t see her. She knew that, knew he was dead. He’d have killed her—and Knox—if she hadn’t been faster, if she hadn’t been forewarned. She knew that, too. But knowing and feeling were two different things, and she felt sick at what she’d had to do.

  Knox went down on one knee beside the body and touched two fingers to his neck, feeling for a pulse. He then began swiftly and efficiently searching the man’s pockets.

  “You want to give me a hand?” he called to Nikita.

  Which one? she wondered, shaken by the request.

  “C’mon, don’t just sit there—” He looked over his shoulder at her as he spoke, and he broke off. “You’re as green as a frog,” he observed. “Is this your first body?”

  Slowly she shook her head. “It’s the first one that’s my fault, though.”

  “It was his fault, not yours. I won’t say you’ll get over it, but put it aside for now if you can. I need everything off him that can’t be explained.”

  Shakily she stood. Approaching that body was one of the hardest things she’d ever done, but she made herself put one foot in front of the other until she could drop to her knees beside Knox. “How do you intend to explain the wound?” she asked. She was shaking in every muscle, a very fine tremor from head to foot.

  “I’m not,” he said. “We’re leaving him here. Someone will eventually find him.”

  “This is against the law,” she felt obliged to point out. She swallowed twice, hard, to keep from throwing up.

  “Damn it, do you think I don’t know that?” he snapped. “I’m risking a prison sentence, but you tell me what you think will happen if I call this in? How do we explain being up here in the woods and just stumbling over a body that, oh, yeah, happened to have become a body at exactly the same time we found it? Even without a pinpointed time of death, it’s close enough that a lot of people will be suspicious, starting with the sheriff.”

  She fell silent, trying to think through all the possibilities. They couldn’t call it in later, because the same question would still arise: what were they doing in the woods? “Maybe an anonymous call, later,” she said.

  “It’s damn hard to make an anonymous call without all sorts of rerouting, or a secured phone. I don’t have the last one and don’t have a clue how to do the first one.”

  He was angry, and not without cause. She had put him in an untenable position, and though she couldn’t have known someone would transit through almost on top of them, she was still the reason Luttrell was dead, and now they had to conceal their part in it. They were both law officers, and now they were breaking the very laws they had sworn to uphold. At least this was her doing, while Knox must feel as if he’d been caught in a trap.

  “I’m sorry,” she said as evenly as possible. “The only way to make this right is to arrest me. I’m the one who killed him, not you. You shouldn’t be in this position.”

  “No, damn it, I shouldn’t be, but I am.” His tone was savage, his blue gaze hard. “I can arrest you, yeah, but how did you kill him? Neither of our weapons has been discharged. Maybe you blurt out that you zapped him with a pen when he materialized in front of you, that he’s a bad guy from the future, and all this other real believable stuff you’ve been telling me? You’ll be in a psych ward before you know it. Or maybe you could demonstrate that little laser, which would bring up a lot of questions I sure as hell don’t want to answer. What about you?—No, I didn’t think so. This is my time and my county, so just do what I tell you. Now, what can’t be explained and needs to come off?”

  “His li