The Avenger Read online

  The Avenger

  Jo Robertson

  A clandestine government organization called Invictus "recruits" outstanding athletes for secret projects. But their top agent Jackson Holt has special, almost preternatural, qualities not even the Organization can explain. Olivia Gant, professor of Ancient Studies at a private college in California, was once Jack's childhood sweetheart. But when he deserted her, he left her alone to combat her stepfather's drunken attentions and her mother's careless neglect. Nearly twenty years later, their paths cross in a mission to fight a bizarre religious serial killer whose methods include crucifixion and burial alive. Olivia and Jack battle for happiness against years of secrecy and distance as they use Olivia's expertise in Latin and Jack's special gifts to track a brutal killer. Can Olivia forgive Jack for his long-ago betrayal? Can Jack allow Olivia to witness the terrible Change that makes him such an effective killing machine? Short Version Jackson Holt is the top agent for a clandestine government organization called Invictus. He has special, almost preternatural, abilities not even they can explain. Olivia Gant, professor of Ancient Studies, was once Jack's childhood sweetheart, but he deserted her. Twenty years later, their paths cross as they track a bizarre religious killer whose murders include crucifixion and burial alive.

  Jo Robertson

  The Avenger

  The second book in the Bigler County series, 2011

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks, as always, to the lovely women writers known as The Romance Bandits (www.romancebandits.blogspot.com). A special nod to my critique partners Kelly Kerns and Cindy Munoz (Loucinda McGary) and to my husband Boyd, as well as my excellent copy editor Megan Banks.

  Here's to many, many Happy, Happy Fun Days with my girls – Shannon, Kennan, Megan, and Sandra.

  This book is dedicated to my oldest daughter Shannon Elizabeth Spicer, who's read everything I've written multiple times and deserves the highest praise for her insightful comments and unfailing support.

  Oakland, California, Seventeen Years Ago

  Prologue

  Fourteen year old Livvie Morse didn't believe in true love. All that stuff she'd read about in fairy tales when she was a kid was dumb, she thought.

  The prince didn't rescue the princess, waking her up from a pretend death with a magical kiss. Or climb up the strong strands of her braided hair – oh yeah, that made sense, hair like rope – to whisk her from the tower prison. Or fit a glass slipper on her tiny foot to prove she's the only girl in the kingdom for him.

  Anyway, wouldn't that shoe break all the hell to pieces with the first step the princess took?

  Stupid. Dumb. Nonsense.

  No, Livvie didn't believe in the true love of fairy tales. What she knew all about was the real-life monsters that lurked in the dark crannies of her nightmares and the dim hallway outside her bedroom. The ones that came out when her mother wasn't around. That crept down the hall and tapped on her door when they knew she was alone.

  But that spring night proved her wrong about fairy tales and true love.

  Livvie's mother worked the graveyard shift at Mercy General Hospital in east Oakland while her stepfather Roger Strong watched Letterman and guzzled his eleventy-millionth bottle of beer. When her mother left at ten-thirty, Livvie locked herself in her bedroom, a kitchen chair pushed beneath the door knob for good measure.

  The chair wouldn't keep Roger out if he really wanted to break down the door, but maybe he'd be drunk enough to give up if the knob didn't budge with his first sneaky twist. The trick had worked before.

  Livvie frowned and pressed her ear to the door.

  Silence, except for the muffled drone of the television and the faint percussion of the radiator.

  Stripping down to her panties, she rummaged through her dresser until she found a faded blue pullover and the oversized tee shirt that had belonged to her long-gone father. She pulled a sweatshirt on top of the two shirts and stepped into jeans and bulky sweats. She felt like a friggin' snowman, but the layers of clothing made her feel safe. Roger would have to rip off a lot of stuff if he wanted to get at her.

  She giggled nervously, then clapped her hand over her mouth as panic rose like birds' wings in the cavern of her chest. Grabbing a pair of scissors from her nightstand drawer, she switched off the light and crawled under the covers. She sat with her back propped against the scarred headboard, the scissors hidden beneath the blanket and the covers pulled up around her neck.

  She thought about the poem they'd studied today in Mrs. Wright's tenth-grade English class. Dylan Thomas. Livvie sure as hell wasn't going to go gentle into any old damn, dark night. Rage, rage. Rage against the monster called Roger. She smiled grimly and slunk deeper into the bedcovers.

  Hours later the soft rattling of the doorknob woke her with a start. Adrenaline pumped through her body like a jolt of electricity, and right behind it, cold slippery fear. She jerked up and peered through the room, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the gloom.

  After long moments, her heart roaring in her ears, she tossed back the bedcovers, padded on bare feet across the room, and pressed her ear to the door. She willed the noise in her head to stop and drew in a deep breath, holding it as she strained to hear the sound again.

  Nothing.

  She waited endlessly, hot and sweaty inside the layers of clothing, the scissors glued to her hand.

  Finally she heard shallow, ragged breathing through the thin particle board. Roger! The damn son of a bitch hovered inches from where she stood, slithering outside her door like the snake he was. The tremor started in her hand and traveled up her arm, downward to her knees until her whole body shook like an earthquake.

  She listened to the raspy breathing for a long minute, her helplessness something sour at the back of her throat. Did Roger mean business this time? Had he decided tonight was the night his step-daughter needed the "lesson" he always threatened to give her?

  She clamped down on her lip and ran her tongue over the coppery taste of blood. Suddenly she felt foolish, a child playing at being a kung fu girl-warrior. Even if she could get a stab in before he overpowered her, she'd only make him madder. She pictured the red puckering of his face and imagined those paws of his cuffing her head. "Smack you up-side the head," he'd bluster in his menacing tone.

  What was she thinking? Roger was a burly six-two and outweighed her by more than a hundred and fifty pounds. Did she really imagine she could outmaneuver him? He'd squish her like a bug.

  In that instant Livvie made her decision. She retrieved her gym shoes from the closet, tucked the scissors in the waistband of her sweats, and raced to the window. She turned back toward the bedroom door as she heard a series of rat-a-tat-tat knocks and a gravelly voice whispering her name.

  "O-liv-ee-uh, O-liv-ee-uh," he taunted her.

  Panicked, she clamored awkwardly over the sill and out the window. Slid down the sloped roof. Scraped her butt on the old shingles and landed with a thwack on the damp leaves below. She ran as fast as she could, arms pumping, legs like pistons, gym shoes slapping the wet cement.

  Instinct taking over, she raced toward her best friend, the only person who knew her awful secret. The only one she could trust. By the time she reached the corner, her body dripped with cold sweat and she'd lost the scissors.

  She rounded left on Granville for another five blocks. Right on Amhearst until she reached the shabby yellow and white house at the end of the street. It abutted a neighboring house on one side and a chain-link fence on the other that separated the Holt property from the abandoned glass factory.

  Thunder ravaged her chest and fire burned her legs as she ground to a halt. She hunkered beneath the drooped branches of a low-hanging willow beside the familiar wraparound porch. She glanced over her shoulder. Roger might leap
out of the darkness at any moment, drag her back home, and… her mind shut down.

  Livvie wasn't sure what would happen next, but she knew it would be the worst kind of punishment.

  One eye on the street behind her, she gathered pebbles and tossed them against Jackie's window until a dim light showed through the blinds. She saw his shaggy head poke out the window, and a minute later the front door opened. She flew into his arms while he held her until the shakes stopped.

  "Shh, shh, Squirt. You're okay now," he crooned.

  Safe, she thought, finally safe. In Jackie Holt's twin bed, she sank into a fitful sleep, curled up against his strong, young body. Safe, for now, but she knew she'd have to go back.

  She woke up with her backside pressed against the hard length of muscled body and a band of iron draped protectively over her chest, a hand curved round her cheek. She sighed and wiggled into the firm strength at her back.

  "Livvie, wake up," Jackie whispered at her temple, tickling her ear with his warm breath. "You have to go before your mom finds out you're missing."

  "No," she murmured, drugged with sleep and snug in the safe, narrow confines of the bed. "Can't go home yet."

  Jackie turned her over and brushed the unruly mass of dark hair from her face. "Come on, Squirt, you can't stay much longer. I'll walk you back and make sure Roger's dead drunk." He grinned and showed strong, white teeth in a dark face. "And if he's not, I'll help him along with a little knock to the head."

  She stared up at his suddenly beloved face and felt the seismic shift in her small world. Why hadn't she realized before how beautiful he was? Her face flushed and her heart began an unfamiliar staccato in her chest. She saw the answering emotion in Jackie's eyes and felt a sudden hard thrust against her thigh.

  This is what the princess in the fairy tale felt when the prince rescued her, she thought.

  Driven by budding confidence and pure instinct, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled his mouth down on hers. His soft, warm lips opened to hers as a fierce jolt jarred her whole body like fire and ice and floods and desert all jumbled together and centered in her lower body. She kissed his lips and face and neck in a fever accompanied by incoherent words she didn't even understand.

  And finally, when she pressed against him and urged him so sweetly, Jackie gave in. He was the one person who could understand her convoluted logic. If she was going to lose her virginity anyway, she didn't want Roger with his grabby hands and stinking breath to be the one.

  She wanted her best friend to be the first because maybe – just maybe – she was beginning to believe in that fairy tale after all.

  Southeast Africa, Present Day

  Chapter One

  The Zichecola jungle of southeast Africa's coast lay in dank tangles around the man's crouched, naked body. The susurration of insects and the buzzing of tiny living things sounded loud in the humid silence.

  A hunter in search of human prey, Jackson Holt moved stealthily through the forest, the air's heavy moisture slick against his bare flesh. Vines and foliage dangled from trees like the crazed scribbling of a madman. Sweat ran off his muscles and bunched under his armpits and beneath his testicles. His body settled into the familiar, dense wilderness like one who'd returned to his primordial self.

  The man-turned-hunter lifted his face to the purpled sky and sniffed cautiously. There, upwind of him. Three hundred meters. A faint whiff of man-odor. Man-sweat. Fear, laden with the subtle tremors of panic. The scent of the quarry awaiting the predator.

  They'd been expecting him for so long they'd grown inured to the smell of their own fear. Holt barred his teeth and crept steadily forward.

  He reached the secret camp just as the mottled sky gave way to the pink tinge of dawn. The rain had ceased, and the muffled humidity blanketed the area of packed dirt where Idi Kanumba pushed back the flaps of his tent and walked to the river's edge.

  A giant beast of a man, Kanumba yawned loudly and scratched his bare chest. He stretched in the morning air and glanced toward the two stations where his guards stood at attention. Satisfied, he unzipped his trousers and urinated a steady yellow stream into the water.

  Watching, Holt curled his lip. Even animals don't piss in their drinking water.

  He reconnoitered from his hiding place, noting with care the number of bodyguards, the weapons they carried, and the level of alertness they showed. Smaller than their leader, the guards looked quick and wiry. Each carried a.45 Auto GLOCK and a hunting knife on his belt. Even with the accuracy of the GLOCKs, Holt figured he could easily take out the first two guards with a single blow.

  The third man dangled an Uzi from his right hand and carelessly slung an AR-15 assault rifle over his left shoulder. Though his posture was casual, his eyes had the wary look of a veteran fighter. He'd be the man to watch, the only one who'd put up a decent fight.

  The fourth man was Kanumba. The beast who'd assassinated over one hundred thousand of his own people and buried them in mass graves outside Zichecola City. Some of them were healthy, young rebels. Most were women and old men. Many of them were children.

  Why had he murdered them?

  Better to ask why the winds blow or the rains fall. He murders because it is his nature. And he can get away with it. But no more.

  Holt uncoiled his body and braced the knife blade, his single weapon, between his teeth. First, the Uzi guard. Just as the ebony-faced man snarled and lifted his weapon, Holt buried his dagger hilt-deep in the guard's right eye socket.

  He pounced on Kanumba before the leader could react enough to zip up his fly. Slashed his throat in a gnashing of steel against muscle and tendon that nearly severed the head from the body. An arterial spray gushed onto the attacker's face, arms, and torso. By the time he turned to confront the remaining two bodyguards, his body was as slick as an ancient sacrificial offering.

  Slippery and wet, he slid on his ass along the grassy marsh at the water's edge, and with a swipe of one leg toppled the two remaining guards. Both men landed with a thud. He stepped behind each, and in a practiced motion, yanked their necks to the right. They crumpled at his feet.

  Finished.

  Holt stared at the carnage around him, then retrieved his weapon and wiped it in the tall grass. Already the flies began to hover around the sticky, darkening pools of blood. The man inside the warrior struggled to overcome the wave of nausea that swept through him, but the beast within howled in triumph.

  By the time he'd finished digging shallow graves for the bodies, dismantling the tent, and dispersing the supplies, the sun shone high in the eastern sky. The temperature had risen twenty degrees, and the sounds of insects pierced the silence of the forest like angry wasps. He washed in the river, sluicing blood from his arms and face, rinsing his torso. He welcomed the cool relief of the water against his fevered flesh, the return from the dark place.

  The miniscule changes that heralded his transformation back to the man he'd been when he set off from Johannesburg yesterday had already started by the time he finished cleaning up. The muscles contracted, the skin color stabilized, the indefatigable strength ebbed. When he sniffed the air, he no longer detected the heavy coppery odor with the fine olfactory senses of the animal.

  His nerves prickled as human feeling returned.

  At last Jackson Holt dressed in clothes he'd uncovered in the tent and set off toward Zichecola City, twenty miles to the east. The sun dappled in his eyes as he marched. With each step he relived the thrill of the knife blade to the vulnerable flesh, the strength that coursed through his body, the heady adrenaline rush of victory. But, as always, when the warrior's body returned to itself, he felt a terrible reckoning. At the final return of his humanness, he stared at his hands and observed their mortal trembling.

  In his mind Holt repeated the mantra that grounded him as he moved silently to the rhythm of the chant. It became a roar in his head, gradually banishing every bloody image of his mission.

  Invictus . Invictus. Invictus.

&nb
sp; Our Lady of Fatima University, Sacramento, California

  Chapter Two

  Teddy Burrows was an irresistible ass.

  If Olivia had been a fraction more pugnacious or a smidgen less charmed by him, she'd have passed him off to another professor. This time she gave him a verbal set down.

  "I'm sorry you don't agree with the morals clause," she said with a specious smile, "but this is a private Catholic university. We all have to sign the paper. Even me."

  "I just don't get it," Ted argued. "It's not like I'm aiming for the priesthood."

  The remark brought a ripple of laughter from the other doctoral candidates enrolled in Olivia's seminar. She suppressed a sigh and decided to pick her battles. Ted was famous for walking to a different drummer.

  "Anyone can opt not to sign the proper paperwork, of course," she reminded them, looking around the room. "It's up to each individual candidate to decide if he or she wants to pursue an advanced degree here at Fatima."

  She checked the clock on the wall at the back of the classroom and decided to let them go early. "Your advisors will be listed on the department bulletin board by noon tomorrow." She smiled broadly. "Good luck."

  Watching them shuffle out the door, all seven masters and doctoral candidates in the Department of Ancient Studies, she stuffed her papers into her worn briefcase. Had she ever been that young and innocent? She thought briefly of the miserable little house on Main Street and her mother's drinking bouts.

  Ted Burrows waited for her outside the classroom door.

  "What question can I answer for you, Mr. Burrows?" She walked briskly down the hall toward her office as Ted scurried after her.