Bodyguard With A Badge
Bodyguard With A Badge
Elizabeth Heiter
Take the shot…or take a chance?FBI Sniper Andre Diaz saved Juliette Lawson from a deadly hostage situation. But only hours later, he receives the surprise of his life when she takes him hostage in order to escape Quantico. Now the federal agent knows just how desperate Juliette is to stay hidden from her dangerous cop ex-husband.Putting her trust in another law enforcement officer is difficult. Yet Juliette senses Andre is definitely one of the good guys. Perhaps he truly can protect her from the secrets she’s been running from—unless her deadly past catches up with them both first.
Take the shot…or take a chance?
FBI sniper Andre Diaz saved Juliette Lawson from a deadly hostage situation. But only hours later, he receives the surprise of his life when she takes him hostage in order to escape Quantico. Now the federal agent knows just how desperate Juliette is to stay hidden from her dangerous cop ex-husband.
Putting her trust in another law enforcement officer is difficult. Yet Juliette senses Andre is definitely one of the good guys. Perhaps he truly can protect her from the secrets she’s been running from—unless her deadly past catches up with them both first.
The Lawmen: Bullets and Brawn
He stared directly into her eyes, intense and sincere. “I believe you.”
She stamped down the hope she felt at his words, tried to be logical. “Why?”
“My gut is telling me you’re innocent.” His gaze went to the gun and then back to her face. “Relatively innocent.”
A smile twitched her lips, and she felt the sudden, ridiculous urge to laugh at the predicament she’d gotten herself into. She’d never so much as gotten a parking ticket her whole life and in one day, she’d stolen a gun off one federal agent and taken another one hostage.
“Just level with me, Juliette,” Andre said, his deep brown eyes imploring, almost hypnotizing in their intensity.
A shiver worked its way up her body that had nothing to do with fear. Letting her attraction for this man lull her into trusting him was a bad idea. Whether or not he believed her story, he was still a federal agent.
Bodyguard with a Badge
Elizabeth Heiter
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ELIZABETH HEITER likes her suspense to feature strong heroines, chilling villains, psychological twists and a little romance. Her research has taken her into the minds of serial killers, through murder investigations and onto the FBI Academy’s shooting range. Elizabeth graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in English literature. She’s a member of International Thriller Writers and Romance Writers of America. Visit Elizabeth at www.elizabethheiter.com (http://www.elizabethheiter.com).
For my amazing agent, Kevan Lyon.
Thank you for believing in me.
Acknowledgments (#u3b908ad4-ed28-507c-bead-817cbbd73eec)
Thank you to Paula Eykelhof, Denise Zaza, Kayla King and everyone involved in bringing Bodyguard with a Badge to shelves. Thanks to fellow Intrigue authors Barb Han, Janie Crouch and Tyler Anne Snell for #AllTheWords. And thanks to my family and friends for their endless support, with a special thanks to my usual suspects for their manuscript feedback and support: Chris Heiter, Robbie Terman, Andrew Gulli, Kathryn Merhar, Caroline Heiter, Kristen Kobet, Ann Forsaith, Charles Shipps, Sasha Orr, Nora Smith and Mark Nalbach.
Contents
Cover (#udb401241-b25a-5e41-bd7a-10ea72274731)
Back Cover Text (#ufd1951dc-0371-5047-9017-e8f2e64be909)
Introduction (#u59bb6d3e-7307-5a1d-b1ba-a21a27b13b5a)
Title Page (#ua64d06c4-f926-5c53-b788-29d0a39aba55)
About the Author (#u5dcd6cc8-22ef-5f7c-bc73-893341240161)
Dedication (#u298926af-04a0-5af7-b0b2-9c6b38031b4e)
Acknowledgments (#ud5be4a97-f90d-595d-8652-ea5dcb60ac5b)
Chapter One (#ub669b639-f1c2-52ce-8d5f-5e47b07e0f7f)
Chapter Two (#u775b00b0-551a-56eb-8f4e-3b6c8e13679d)
Chapter Three (#ufb990e7b-53ad-52a8-91d9-124a38157fbb)
Chapter Four (#uf017bac9-1305-5672-bac5-fcc94a910451)
Chapter Five (#u427cb3e2-bb57-5de2-b5a5-15f9f4a0195f)
Chapter Six (#ub4630218-8ad0-5c62-825b-b510629852fc)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#u3b908ad4-ed28-507c-bead-817cbbd73eec)
Andre Diaz lurched upright, disoriented and unable to see through the thick smoke swirling in his bedroom. He sucked in a breath and instantly choked, even as his tired brain attempted to figure out what was happening.
“Andre! Get up!”
His older brother’s voice cut through his growing fear and Andre threw off his covers and jumped out of bed, almost tripping.
“We have to move,” Cole told him, his ever-calm voice laced with barely contained panic.
Andre stumbled through the dark room, each breath labored. Out in the hallway, light beckoned, but as he joined his brothers in the doorway, he realized it wasn’t because someone had flicked a switch.
The house was on fire.
“Hold on to me,” Cole insisted. “Marcos, grab Andre. Don’t let go. Come on.”
Andre clutched his older brother’s shirt and he felt his younger brother’s hand on his shoulder as the three of them hurried toward the stairwell. They ducked low to avoid the flames that seemed to be leaping all around them.
The walls were on fire. Andre looked up. The ceiling was on fire, too.
Finally, they reached the stairs and Cole picked up the pace. They were both coughing now, so whatever Cole yelled back at him, Andre couldn’t understand.
His eyes were watering, too, and he couldn’t see anything but flames lunging closer as he stumbled down the stairs, faster and faster, desperate for air. But every breath brought smoke deeper into his lungs.
Then, he could see it. The door was open. He could see outside.
But could he reach it? His lungs hurt, and his body was starting to shut down from lack of air. His eyes felt swollen and useless, and even though Cole was a step ahead of him, he knew it only because he still clutched his brother’s shirt. All he could see was that open doorway ahead, the sun beginning to rise on the horizon.
But finally, he was stepping into the fresh air, falling onto the newly cut grass, coughing and coughing, feeling as if he’d never get oxygen into his aching throat.
Through his haze, he heard Cole screaming. Then he saw one word form on his brother’s lips: “Marcos!”
Andre looked back and realized Marcos hadn’t made it out behind him. The doorway he’d come through was now engulfed, flames reaching for the front porch.
Andre tried to get to his feet so he could race back to the house, but his knees kept buckling. Then Cole’s arms were around him, holding him in place, even as Andre yelled for his younger brother. But no one else was coming through that flaming doorway, and suddenly sparks flew from the post on the front porch, and half of the roof collapsed.
Andre jerked awake in his bed, his heart thundering against his ribs. He was drenched in sweat, his breathing erratic, as though he was still inside that burning house.
“You got out,” he reminded himself, throwing his covers aside and getting out of bed on unsteady feet. “We all got out.”
The fire had happened eighteen years ago, when he’d been just fourteen. The first few years afterward, he’d woken up regularly, panicking until he remembered that his younger brother had escaped another way. He hadn’t dreamed about that night in years.
But he knew what had brought it on: the call he’d gotten last night at work. A family trapped inside their house. The father had set it on fire and was holding a gun on his wife and son, determined that they’d all die together. The firefighters couldn’t go inside to save them without being shot.
The FBI had gotten the call from the local police, whose only sniper was out of commission. Andre’s team had gone in, and he’d been the one to take the shot from the roof of the house across the street, through the second-story bedroom window.
He’d killed a man in front of his family, but it meant the firefighters had been able to enter the house. They’d gotten the wife and son out, alive and amazingly unharmed. Except for the nightmares they’d both surely have for years, too.
Beside his bed, a persistent buzzing caught his attention and he realized he’d been receiving texts. He swiped a hand over his forehead and grabbed the work cell phone he always kept close.
It was a triple-eight call from his boss at the FBI’s elite Hostage Rescue Team, where he’d worked for the past four years as a sniper. Triple eight meant an emergency.
Of course, at HRT, they were already part of what the FBI called their Critical Incident Response Group. So no call was low priority. But triple eight was as high as it got.
It meant no time for even a two-minute shower, so he tossed aside the boxers he’d been wearing and traded them for cargos and a T-shirt, yanking up his flight suit over it. His FBI-issued rifle and the rest of the gear he carried on a mission were in a lockbox in the trunk of his sedan.
Andre double-timed it down the stairs of his little house and hopped in his car, still trying to shake off his dream, and hoping it wasn’t an omen for what was to come today.
The information in the text was minimal, but it was enough to get his adrenaline going for a different reason. They were going to a hostage call at an office building not far from where he worked at Quantico. Multiple gunmen, multiple hostages.
At 7:00 a.m., the sun was just beginning to rise, and it instantly took him back to the dream he’d just left, those moments outside the house, frantic to get to Marcos. He slapped his siren on the roof, punched down on the gas and wove around a long line of cars. “Mind on the mission,” he told himself.
He dialed his partner, Scott Delacorte, and soon Scott’s gruff voice filled his car. “We don’t know much. The gunmen are in a marketing company office up on the third floor. Employees there start early and leave early, to avoid some of the rush-hour traffic. So we could have a lot of hostages, but we’re hoping none of the other companies in that building have started the day yet. Police are holding the scene.”
“Any news on what the gunmen are after? Any communications? Do we know if they’ve fired shots?” Was this a hostage-taking situation or an active shooter?
“The call came in to 911 ten minutes ago from a secretary who managed to hide in the storage room. She told the operator there were multiple armed men—at least three—and at the time of the call, they hadn’t started shooting. She thought they were searching for someone.”
That might be good or bad. Good if the person they were after hadn’t arrived yet; maybe the gunmen would leave, and HRT could nab them on the way out. Bad if the gunmen had a specific target they wanted to take out. Once they did, they might eliminate anyone else in their way.
Still, the setup was strange. A single gunman searching for a particular victim—maybe a spouse or stalking target—wasn’t that unusual. But multiple gunmen, after one target? That was overkill. What single target at a small, independently owned marketing company would warrant that kind of firepower? It didn’t quite fit.
“That’s odd,” was all Andre said aloud.
“Agreed. But the secretary’s in the storage room. Who knows how well she’s pegged the situation?” The screaming siren from Scott’s end stopped. “I’m here. Gonna set up and get on the scope. Northwest corner, we’ve got woods, a nice trail that actually leads right out the back door of the office building and up a little hill. The whole thing is pretty hidden. I’m looking through my binoculars right now and I see a good sniper perch about a quarter mile up. How far out are you?”
“One minute.”
“Make it faster,” Scott said and cut the connection.
Andre pushed the gas pedal down to the floor, blaring his horn over the siren and whipping around the few drivers obnoxious enough not to get out of his way. Thirty seconds later, he was at the office complex.
He flashed his badge to the police officers stationed at the entrance to the complex, which was nestled in the woods. Thankfully it was off the beaten track enough that they shouldn’t have to worry about the potential collateral of the pedestrians and gawkers they’d get if they were closer to the city.
The cops let him pass, and he flew into the parking lot, screeching to a stop next to his boss’s big green SUV. He yanked his gear out of the trunk as his boss gave him the rundown.
“We don’t know much more than what Scott already gave you,” Froggy told him. The guy had been a navy SEAL before joining the FBI, and the nickname was a humorous nod to his past. “Go join Scott and get me some more intel.”
“You got it.” Andre slung his rifle over his back, slipped his gear bag over his shoulder and slid his Glock pistol out of the holster he’d put on while he drove. He popped his earbud in, and turned on the bone mic at his neck. It nestled against his voice box, so all he’d need to do was speak and his whole team could hear him. Then, he was on the move.
He ran around the corner of the office building, Glock ready in case one of the gunmen decided to try to rabbit out the back. Then he spotted the half-hidden trail Scott had mentioned and jogged onto it, increasing his pace even as the incline up the hill got more and more steep. Every minute counted for the hostages inside.
“I cleared you a spot,” Scott said, not taking his eyes off the scope as Andre settled into the patch of dirt his partner indicated.
Andre dropped his gear beside him and set up his rifle, dialing in the specifics for wind and altitude that Scott read off to him. And then he was peering through his own rifle scope, into the third floor of the office building.
He scanned from left to right across the whole floor, taking in the situation. A gunman stood in the front room, a Bluetooth receiver in his ear and tattoos climbing out the top of his shirt. He clutched a semiautomatic pistol with both hands, but he kept checking the paper he held crumpled against the stock of his gun. On the floor around him were eight men and women in business clothes. Some held on to one another, two were in tears, and they were all avoiding the gunman’s gaze as though he’d already warned them not to look at him. But no one appeared to be injured. Not yet.
Andre pulled back up to the gunman, dialing in a little closer, trying to see what was on the paper that was so interesting. He was speaking angrily, but Andre didn’t think he was talking to the hostages.
“Phone’s on,” Scott said, seeming to read Andre’s mind.
They’d been partners for two years now, and Scott had become practically a third brother to Andre. Half the time on missions, they didn’t need words at all. “We know who he’s talking to?”
“I think it’s the second gunman.”
Andre swung farther right and found the other guy. He, too, had a cell phone, clipped to his waist, with an earphone in one ear. He held a semiautomatic, and he kept glaring down at a piece of paper as he wrenched open one door after the next, clearly searching for someone.
He pulled open another door and aimed his weapon at the woman cowering inside on the floor, surrounded by stacks of paper and printer cartridges. She yanked her hands up over her head, a phone dropping to the floor.
“Shit,” Scott said as the gunman’s grip shifted and Andre was able to zoom in closer and get a glimpse of what was on the paper he held.
“It’s not her he’s looking for,” Andre said, keying his mic so the rest of the team could hear. “This guy’s carrying a picture of a woman. Mid-to late-twenties, blondish-brown hair.” A beautiful woman, with a sad smile. Not an easy face to miss. “She’s not one of the hostages in the front room.”
Andre widened his view again as the gunman waved the woman in the storage closet toward the other hostages. She scurried out of the room, then dropped down next to her coworkers, as the second guy continued to open doors, looking angrier and more frustrated with every empty room.
“I thought the secretary told us there were at least three shooters,” Andre said, continuing his search.
“She did, but I’ve only seen two. We’ve got operators in place right outside the front door. They’re ready to storm the building if these guys start shooting, but ideally we identify the location of all the shooters first. If this goes bad, I’ve got the one with the hostages, okay? You take the other guy.”
“Got it,” Andre affirmed. But only Froggy could give the word to take any shots. If that happened, he’d have to shoot through the window and time it when the second gunman was in his line of sight, which could get dicey. The guy was heading into the back of the office now, where Andre didn’t have an angle on him.
Scott swore and Andre asked what was wrong at the same time as Froggy.
“I found the last gunman.”
“Where is he?” Andre asked, continuing his methodical search.
“He slipped out the back door. He’s heading up the trail right now, straight for us. And the woman they were hunting for? She’s with him, and he’s got a gun pointed at her head.”
Chapter Two (#u3b908ad4-ed28-507c-bead-817cbbd73eec)
He’d found her. After all this time, she’d finally started to feel safe again, as if she didn’t have to constantly look over her shoulder. But somehow, he’d found her and sent his goons after her.
These stupefied thoughts ran through Juliette Lawson’s mind as she put one foot in front of the other. Her body had gone numb, but she could still feel the exact spot where the cold metal of a gun barrel pressed against her head.
The thug walking behind her had grabbed her just when she’d thought she was going to escape. She’d been in the bathroom when she’d heard screaming that morning. She’d peeked out in time to see three men enter, holding pictures of her. She’d never seen any of them before, but she knew why they’d come.
Initially, she’d darted back into the bathroom, hoping to hide, praying they wouldn’t find her, that they’d just leave. But it soon became clear hiding wouldn’t work, so she’d tried to slip down the back stairs. Just as she’d been reaching for the door to the exit, this one had come up behind her and put a gun to her head. He’d led her out the back door, out of sight of the police officers gathered in the distance and farther away from help.
She’d considered screaming, but fear had trapped it in her throat and then she’d realized if she did yell for help, he’d probably shoot.
Now, the gunman jabbed her with his weapon every few steps, pressuring her to move faster up the little dirt trail through the woods. But they were moving uphill at a steep angle, and she was wearing heels. If she picked up her pace any more, she was going to stumble. And the faster she walked, the less chance she had of figuring out a way to escape before he reached the next step of his plan.
Juliette knew the next step of his plan was to do one of two things: either get her somewhere secluded and kill her, or take her back to Dylan. It was like comparing a death sentence to life behind bars. She wasn’t sure which was worse.
But she did know that if Dylan had hired him, this guy had training. Even if by some miracle, she managed to wrestle the gun away from him, he’d be able to take her down. If she ran, he’d probably shoot. And he wouldn’t miss.
She tried to push aside all the regrets she felt, to focus on survival, but one regret kept surfacing. If only she’d never met Dylan Keane. Then maybe she’d still be back in Pennsylvania, still trying to sell the paintings she loved in galleries, instead of trying to be invisible as a graphic designer and spending her days buried in a cubicle.
Now there was a very good chance she wouldn’t even be buried in a shallow grave. There was a good chance she was about to bleed out in the woods, and those cops who’d surrounded the office would eventually find her body. She prayed she’d be the only casualty, and the other gunmen wouldn’t hurt her colleagues.
They had no idea who she really was, no idea what danger they were in just being near her. She’d never thought she’d been putting them in harm’s way, because she’d never expected Dylan would send goons to her work. She’d always figured that if he tracked her down, he’d simply grab her out of her apartment one day and drag her back. Force her to live in that house again, like a prisoner. Or just kill her right there and leave her dead in her apartment until one of her neighbors noticed the smell.
Stop it, Juliette told herself. Morose thoughts weren’t going to get her out of this. She needed a plan. And even though running was pointless, it was probably her best chance.
Up ahead, the trail curved. That was the spot. She’d pretend to stumble, ditch the heels. She’d be able to run faster barefoot.
Her heart started pounding so hard she could hear the blood pumping in her ears. It seemed to block out the other noises off in the distance—the birds chirping, the FBI agent in the parking lot yelling over a loudspeaker at the gunmen, even the big, furious guy behind her insisting she pick up her pace.
The curve got closer and closer, until she knew it was time. Her heart felt out of control as she let out a squeak and pretended to trip on a protruding branch, going down on her knees and sliding out of her heels as though they’d come off in the fall. The guy’s hand closed around her arm, but the gun came down. It was no longer pointed at her head.
This was her chance.
She readied herself to shove upward, to knock him down and run as fast as she could, zigging and zagging the way Dylan had taught her, back before he realized he might not want her to escape a bullet. But she never had the chance to try.
A figure flew out of a tree, crashing past her and onto her attacker in a tangled blur of arms and legs and guns.
Juliette yelped and scurried free. The new man was armed too, a Glock strapped to his hip, and a whole slew of other equipment attached to his body that suggested he was in the military. He was all motion, just smooth brown skin and bulging muscles and full of confidence as he drew back a fist and sent it crashing into the gunman’s jaw.
The gunman took the hit with a growl and tried to flip the new guy, but Juliette didn’t wait around to see who’d come out on top or how long the fight would last. She caught a glimpse of intense, dark brown eyes on her rescuer and decided he was some kind of Special Operations soldier. She had no idea what he was doing in the woods, but she said a silent thank you and stumbled to her feet, darting off the trail.
She was pretty sure the soldier was going to prevail in the fight happening behind her, but even if he wasn’t with the law enforcement surrounding the office complex, he’d surely turn her over to them.
And then there was no question what would happen next: she’d be headed straight back to Dylan, straight back to the life she thought she’d finally escaped.
* * *
“WHAT DO YOU think you’re doing?”
A strong hand closed around her arm, bringing Juliette to a stop. Her bare feet almost slid out from underneath her on the trail, which was slippery from the leaves that had begun falling off the trees a week ago. Before she could go down, her rescuer dropped his hand from her arm to her waist, catching her.
“It’s over,” he said, his voice reassuring. His fingers pressed into the top of her hip, keeping her from making another run for it, away from everyone. “The guy’s in handcuffs. You’re safe.”
Juliette stared up at him. He probably had four inches on her height of five foot six, just enough so she had to tip her head back to look him in the eyes. They were deep brown, almost hypnotizing the way they were locked onto hers as though he didn’t see anything else in the world right now.
She knew it was only because he was trying to convince her everything was going to be okay, but that didn’t stop a shiver of awareness from working its way up from her toes.
Thank goodness he misunderstood the reason. He told her, “I’m Andre Diaz, with the FBI. I promise you, you’re safe with me, okay? And we’re going to get your colleagues out of there. But right now, I need you to come with me.”
Instead of letting go of her waist, he led her back down the trail toward the parking lot, guiding her like she was in shock. Which maybe she was, because she couldn’t believe any of this was happening.
She’d been on the run for three years. She’d managed to hide, to somehow stay one step ahead of Dylan all that time. And now it was over.
Those first few months, heck, that entire first year, she’d jumped at every noise and slept with the lights on most nights. But lately, she’d found herself relaxing. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d looked over her shoulder or run to her car clutching her mace in one hand, certain one of Dylan’s lackeys was on her trail.
She’d let her guard down, created a new life for herself. It hadn’t been a full life, but it had been hers. And now it was over.
Glancing at Andre as he helped her down the trail, carefully avoiding any sharp sticks or rocks on the trail because of her bare feet, tears blurred her vision. Not out of fear, but because someone cared enough to bother helping her. She blinked them away.
Now wasn’t the time to get emotional because some guy was doing his job, because apparently some members of law enforcement really were on the side of the victims. And now really wasn’t the time to fixate on the feel of his strong hand grasping the top of her hip as he led her to all those blinking red and blue lights in front of her office building. But she couldn’t help but be hyperaware of the pure masculine scent of him beside her, the ridiculously hard bicep pressing into her back.
She dragged her feet as they hit the concrete, glancing up at the third floor where all her colleagues were, terrified because of her. And she realized Andre had carefully led her to a vehicle on a path that kept her completely out of view of the windows up on the third floor.
“Hop in here,” he told her, holding open the back of an SUV with tinted windows. When she hesitated, he added, “It’s my boss’s vehicle. You’ll be okay. It’s surrounded by my team, and there’s no way anyone’s getting past them. When this is over, we’ll get you home safely.”
She hesitated once more, because she could never go home again. Not to any of the places she’d ever called home over the years.
Then, the tat, tat, tat of a semiautomatic boomed, followed by two more shots in quick succession, and someone let out a piercing scream.
Juliette spun toward the sound, dreading what she was going to see—who had gotten hurt because of her. But she never found out, because Andre shoved her into the SUV and dove on top of her.
The weight of him flattened all the air from her lungs, and the awareness she’d felt earlier when he’d simply had his hand on her waist multiplied, making her skin seem to buzz wherever it touched his. Even though he was simply protecting her, she was suddenly keenly aware of how long it had been since someone had held her.
She tried not to squirm and prayed she wasn’t flushed deep red as he spoke into some kind of communications device she realized went from his ear to a microphone at his neck. Then just as quickly, he was helping her up.
She felt dazed, still trying to catch her breath as he told her, “It’s over. All of your colleagues are okay.”
“What?” The word came out breathy and filled with disbelief. How could it possibly be over that fast? And how could everyone be unharmed?
He gave her a grin that made a dimple pop on one side and said, “We’re good at what we do.”
She stared back at him, taking in all the details she hadn’t noticed before: his cleanly shaved head, the cleft in his chin, the complete focus in his eyes. Beneath that, genuine warmth, as if he really cared what happened to her and it wasn’t just his job to keep her safe for the next few minutes.
Don’t fall for him, she chanted in her head. She’d just met him. She knew nothing about him, other than that he was willing to put his life on the line for others.
She’d fallen for Dylan that way: instantly. A sudden, ridiculous attraction that she’d mistakenly thought was love. She’d fallen for all the things she thought she’d seen in him that had turned out not to be true. And she was seeing all those qualities in Andre’s eyes right now: the goodness, the honesty, the protectiveness. Except she suspected with Andre, they were actually real.
His gaze seemed to bore into her and then she saw something else: a reciprocal glint of attraction. It made her want to lean closer and tell him the truth about what had happened today. To go through the process she knew they’d want: hours of questioning at some police station or maybe an FBI office, to learn why hired gunmen were after her. To trust that maybe this time someone would believe her story. That maybe this time things could really change. But she couldn’t take the chance.
He smiled at her and gave her a hand out of the vehicle.
One of the other agents, dressed as if he was going to war, slapped him on the back and said, “Why don’t you give her a ride back to Quantico? The locals are asking us to take the lead, since these gunmen might be professionals. We’re going to need a debrief.”
She could tell from Andre’s dimpled smile that when the questioning was over, he was going to ask her out. In another life, she would have said yes.
Too bad she’d never see him again after today.
* * *
“AREN’T YOU GOING to stick around and see if you can drive this woman home?” Scott teased, just as Andre thought he’d made a clean getaway.
Andre spun around in the Quantico parking lot, where they’d driven after the situation was contained. The gunman who’d fired in that office had been shot by one of HRT’s operators, but the other two had been brought in wearing handcuffs. They had both gone silent as soon as they were arrested, demanding lawyers, but the FBI had been able to ID them quickly anyway, because they had criminal records. Strangely, the woman Scott was talking about had gone just as silent as the gunmen. She claimed she didn’t know why they were after her, when clearly she did.
“Which woman?” Andre parried, even though he knew Scott wasn’t about to let him off the hook that easily.
“Juliette. Or was it Mya?”
That was the other problem. The woman he’d rescued on that hill had identified herself as Juliette Lawson. So had her colleagues. But the name scrawled next to her picture that the gunmen had all been carrying was Mya.
When they’d mentioned it to Juliette, she’d gone pale and made a beeline for the women’s bathroom, where she’d been for the past hour, either sick or just hiding out.
The fact was, Andre had planned to ask her out. From the second their eyes had met inside his boss’s SUV, he’d known he was in trouble. Sure, she was gorgeous, with those wide hazel eyes framed with insanely dark lashes, and all that long, golden-tinted brown hair that had come loose from her messy bun when he’d tackled her. The soft, womanly curves that had cushioned his fall were pretty tempting, too. But what had really done him in was the way she’d stared back at him, the look in her eyes equal parts vulnerable and strong.
He’d driven her back to Quantico, making small talk on the ride, trying to get to know her a little better. She’d seemed shy, shell-shocked, but definitely interested. He’d intended to wait around until the regular agents had finished questioning her, then ask if he could make a detour to dinner on the way back to her car. But that was when he’d thought she was a simple victim.
He should have known from the beginning there was more to it, because the crime itself was so strange. Why send three heavily armed men after one small woman in a third-floor office building?
In fact, why do it in such a high-profile way at all? Why not have one man grab her on the way to her car before she made it into the office?
She was involved in something. The fact was, she was probably guilty of something. And while a woman with a little mystery had always been a draw for him, a woman who would break the law he worked to uphold was of no interest.
Andre shrugged at his partner, who’d been his friend too long not to see exactly what Andre wasn’t saying. “I’m not sure I need that kind of drama.”
“There’s always Nadia,” Scott said.
Nadia Petrova was a fellow agent, who worked as a weapons training specialist at the FBI Academy, which was located at Quantico with HRT. She’d made no secret of her interest in Andre, and it was getting more and more difficult to sidestep her hints without hurting her feelings.
“I think I want to be the one in the relationship with the bigger guns,” Andre joked. The truth was, Nadia was nice enough, but there just wasn’t any spark.
Scott snorted and slapped him on the arm. “All right. Well, after these last couple of calls back-to-back, I’m heading home. Froggy says you can do the same if you want. The other team is up now.”
The HRT teams swapped off, so one was always on call if any emergencies came in from across the country while the other teams trained. After the week they’d had, with seemingly one crisis after the next, Andre was ready for some low-key exercises. Like rappelling out of helicopters and practicing with his MP5 for mock hostage situations inside one of the old 747-airplane hulls they kept on hand.
“See you tomorrow,” Andre said, digging around in his duffel for wherever he’d stuck his keys as Scott hopped in his SUV and sped away, leaving Andre alone in a lot full of cars but empty of people.
When he’d pulled into the lot a few hours ago, there had been nowhere left to park except at the very back, so he meandered that way now, still digging for his keys. It wasn’t until he was a few feet away from his sedan that his agent instincts went on high alert, warning him someone was close. Too close.
He lifted his hands into a defensive position even as his brain reminded him he was in a heavily guarded Marine base and FBI training area. Then he let out a breath and dropped his hands to his sides as he spotted Juliette—or Mya—coming around from the front of his car.
“What are you doing here?” Had she been waiting for him, crouched between the grill of his car and the big tree he’d parked underneath for a little shade? He frowned. Had she been hiding?
“Get in the car,” she said, her voice wobbly.
A smile threatened. “That’s what I was planning,” he said, starting to rethink his plan to ask her out to dinner. Except... “Shouldn’t you still be inside, talking to the case agents?”
The hand that had been wedged between her side and his car came out, pointing a Glock pistol at him. “Get in.” This time, her tone was apologetic.
He stared, dumbfounded. “Where’d you get that?” She certainly hadn’t come into Quantico with a weapon. Had she taken it off someone inside? If so, that meant she was a much bigger threat than she seemed.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and she actually looked it, with her big, teary eyes and her full, trembling lips. “But we need to go. I have to get out of here, which means you’re going to drive me off the base.”
He leaned against his car, eyeing the distance between them, gauging whether he could disarm her without the gun going off. “Why don’t you tell me what this is about? Let me help you.” He kept his voice calm. It was the same tone he’d used last night with the traumatized kid who’d come out of that fire clutching his mother, after watching a bullet come through the window and take out his father.
“No. Please.” Desperation entered her tone as she shifted her awkward, double-handed hold on the gun. “Just get in, okay, and I promise I’ll let you go as soon as you drop me off where I tell you.”
She wasn’t used to holding a weapon, Andre could tell. “You’re going to have a hard time firing that gun with the safety on.”
When she glanced down, he took one slow step forward, almost close enough to disarm her without a chance of her taking a shot. Just one more step and he could do it.
But then her eyes locked on his as she leveled the weapon at his center mass, something hard and determined in her gaze. “There’s no external safety on a Glock,” she replied, all the nerves gone from her voice. “Now get in. We’re going for a ride.”
Chapter Three (#u3b908ad4-ed28-507c-bead-817cbbd73eec)
She’d just taken a federal agent hostage.
And not just any federal agent. No, she’d picked some kind of super-agent, a man who could take down an armed criminal with his bare hands. When he’d flattened her against the floor of his boss’s SUV a few hours ago, she’d discovered he probably had a negative percentage of body fat. He was all hard, solid muscle.
She should be afraid of what he could do with that muscle, especially after her actions tonight, but for some reason, he made her feel safe.
Andre’s hands were tense on the wheel as he drove silently away from Quantico. He hadn’t said a word since they’d gotten in the car and driven past the guard and out of the gated complex. But she knew that wouldn’t last much longer.
What she didn’t know was what she was going to say to him.
It didn’t matter that she’d emptied the gun of its bullets back in the FBI office after she’d slipped it out of an agent’s holster. There was still no excuse for what she’d just done. Not even if it might well save her life.
The armed standoff at her office building had surely made the news by now. Dylan would know his goons had failed. What’s more, he’d know where to find her himself. Heck, if he wanted to, he could probably get into Quantico and drive her away without anyone making a word of protest. Why would they question a fellow law enforcement officer?
“You planning to tell me what this is all about?”
Andre’s question was quiet, almost a whisper, but it still made Juliette jump in her seat as his voice brought her out of her reverie.
“And would you mind aiming that gun somewhere else? I’d prefer it if you didn’t shoot me accidentally.”
“I’m not going to shoot you at all,” Juliette blurted, then silently cursed herself.
But her words didn’t seem to surprise him. He just repeated his request, and she set the gun on her lap, close enough that she could grab it, but not pointed at him anymore.
“Where are we going?” he asked when she didn’t say any more.
She’d directed him to drive out of Quantico but hadn’t given him a location beyond that. The truth was, she had no idea where she was going. Back to her office—where her car was—was a bad idea, because police were surely still there. And by now, Dylan would have both her work and home address.
Her apartment was off limits. All the things she’d worked hard to build for herself here, she’d have to leave behind. But that was a small price to pay for her life.
She’d planned to have Andre drop her off somewhere she could hitchhike out of town. But the exact logistics of getting out of town before the FBI found and arrested her? She hadn’t quite figured those out.
He must have sensed her hesitation, because he suggested, “How about I drive you to my place?”
“What?” She gaped at him. Was this some kind of trick?
“You obviously have nowhere to go,” Andre said, his voice tired. “And I think you need help. Let me help you.”
“I just repaid you for saving my life by taking you hostage!” Juliette flushed as she said it, both at the absurdity of what she’d done and at how ridiculous she was to argue with him if he was really willing to hear her out.
“You also told me you weren’t going to shoot me,” Andre replied, still sounding calm and in control, even though she was the one holding the gun.
A gun that as far as he knew was loaded with bullets. And one she’d proven she knew how to use when she’d told him the Glock didn’t have an external safety.
This had to be a trick. But what choice did she really have? She was tired of running. She wanted her life back. She wanted a real life back. Maybe if she let herself trust him, just for now, Andre could help her get that.
“Okay,” Juliette agreed, amazed the words were coming out of her mouth even as she said them. “Let’s go to your place.”
* * *
THIS WAS A bad idea.
The words echoing in Andre’s head sounded like his older brother, Cole. And even though it was his experience that Cole was almost always right, Andre pushed them aside and held open the door to his house for Juliette.
He watched her glance around the living room curiously, taking in the oversize couch, the comfortable chairs bracketing it, the coffee table stacked with books and coasters. He knew it appeared lived in, the kind of place often overflowing with friends and family. She lingered on the photos lining the table behind his couch—he and his brothers, he and Scott on an overseas mission, his HRT team after a joint training with some navy SEALs. His families.
“You have a nice home,” she said softly. “It’s cozy.”
There was something wistful in her tone, as though she didn’t have memories scattered all around her own place. But for some reason, he had a hard time imagining her not surrounded by people. Instead of asking about it, he said simply, “Thanks. Make yourself comfortable.”
Right now, she seemed as far from comfortable as possible. She’d left her heels somewhere in the woods, so she’d been barefoot ever since, the hem of her slacks collecting dust. She had one hand crammed into the pocket of her cardigan, the outline of the Glock clearly visible. Her hair was a mess, with a few bobby pins valiantly trying to hold up what had started out as a bun, and leaves woven through strands that shimmered under the light. Her pale skin had been flushed from the moment she’d pointed the gun at him.
Maybe if he could get her to relax, he could get a real story out of her. And then he could decide on his next move.
When she just shifted her weight from one foot to the other right inside his door, he closed it behind her and flopped onto his couch across the room, careful not to let the hem of his T-shirt come up. So far, she hadn’t thought to ask, and he didn’t want to give her reason to suspect he was armed. He might be willing to bring her to his house, but there was no way he was handing over his gun.
He was giving her a lot more benefit of the doubt than he normally would. Maybe it was the attraction he’d felt for her the second he’d seen her. More likely it was the vulnerability he kept seeing. He was a sucker for a damsel in distress.
The only problem was, there was a good chance Juliette was involved in something she shouldn’t be. At the very least, she’d taken a weapon off someone, and he couldn’t forget that meant she was more dangerous than she appeared.
Still, he needed her to trust him if they were going to get anywhere. He’d figure out the rest of it from there.
“Have you lived in Virginia very long?” he asked, his tone easy and casual.
She eyed him as though wondering what his angle was, but he just waited patiently, hoping to ease her into conversation.
Finally, she took some hesitant steps forward and settled gingerly on the edge of one of his chairs, far away from him. “A little while.”
“I’ve been here for four years, ever since I got accepted into HRT.” When she looked perplexed, he clarified, “The FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team. The tryouts were brutal, and when they put me in a sniper role, I had to go through extra training with the marines.”
She leaned back into her chair a bit, her expression intrigued, so he kept going.
“The guy you met today, the one who came down that trail we were on? That was my partner, Scott. We’ve worked together for two years. He’s practically my third brother now.” He paused, hoping she’d engage, that he could connect with her and get a real story about what had happened today.
“You have two brothers?” Her gaze went back to the photos, probably searching for someone with any kind of genetic similarity.
“You’ll never pick them out,” he said with a smile. “They’re my foster brothers. We look nothing alike. But we’re closer than blood.” Even after the fire that had destroyed their house, that had very nearly taken Marcos’s life, and had split them apart into separate foster homes, they’d managed to remain family.
“That’s nice,” she replied, and there it was again, that wistful tone.
“You’re not close to your family?”
“No. I grew up in boarding schools.” She said it without anger, just a hint of sadness.
Andre cringed. He only had a vague memory of his biological family, before they’d died in a boating accident when he was five. But that vague memory was tied up in his mother’s arms, holding him close; in his father’s voice, reading him stories. And he had five years of a true, brotherly bond with Cole and Marcos in his second foster home. But before and after that? He knew what it was like to feel all alone, to do his best to go unnoticed because that was the safest way.
He silently cursed. He was already sucked into those wide hazel eyes. He didn’t need any more reasons to feel tied to her, to protect her at all costs, even if she really belonged in jail. His gaze shifted to the bulge in her sweater where she’d stuffed the gun.
“Do you want to tell me what really happened today, Juliette? Who were those men after you?”
“I don’t know.”
He must have looked skeptical, because she immediately insisted, “I don’t know them. But I know who hired them. They had criminal records, right? Probably in Pennsylvania?”
He leaned forward. “How did you know that?”
Her face pinched. “Because my ex-husband hired them to kidnap me.”
“Your ex-husband?” Andre tried to keep the surprise off his face. He didn’t know why he’d expected her never to have been married. It shouldn’t matter one way or another, but he found himself disappointed. “Why would he want to kidnap you?”
She gave him a sad smile. “Let’s just say that the divorce wasn’t amicable. Hell, I don’t even know if it’s official. I filed, and then I ran. But in order for it to be approved, he has to agree to no-fault. I didn’t want to go through a court date, so I didn’t dare file a fault complaint.”
She fidgeted on the chair, avoiding his gaze, and he knew there was more to the story. Probably a lot more.
Anger heated him, and memories flashed through his mind, images he didn’t want to dwell on, from his first foster home. “Did he hurt you?”
“No.” She shook her head, but still didn’t meet his eyes. “But I saw something I shouldn’t have seen, and he knew it. I tried to tell him I’d keep his secret, just to get him to let me go, but he wanted me close. So when I finally accepted that I was in danger, that I had to go, I just filed and ran.”
“Why were you in danger?” Andre forced himself not to lean forward, not to show the aggression he was feeling toward her ex. “Why didn’t you just go to the police for help? Get a restraining order against him?”
She let out a heavy breath. “I couldn’t do that. He was...”
“He was what?” Andre pressed when she went silent for too long. Then his phone rang, and he saw her tense even before he checked the readout. Scott was calling.
He considered letting it go to voice mail, but if someone had spotted Juliette holding a gun on him, he didn’t want his teammates swarming his house in a misguided rescue attempt. “I need to answer this,” he told her. “But you’re safe here, okay?”
He didn’t let her argue, just picked up his cell. “Scott. What’s going on?”
“You didn’t see that woman—Juliette or Mya or whatever her name is—sneak out, did you?”
“Why?” Andre asked, instead of answering, because he hated lying to family.
“She left before they could question her,” Scott said. “You’re not going to believe this, but she actually managed to get a weapon off of Nadia in the restroom.”
“Is Nadia hurt?” If Juliette had disarmed a weapons training agent who could bring fellow agents to tears using her chokehold techniques on the training mats, then Juliette was much more dangerous than he’d suspected.
“Nah, Nadia’s fine. Mostly embarrassed. Apparently this woman has sticky fingers.”
So, Juliette was a pickpocket. Somehow, that didn’t fit. But then nothing about Juliette had fit so far. Still, taking a wallet from an unsuspecting mark on the street was a lot different from getting an agent’s weapon out of its holster.
“Anyway, there’s a lot more to this story,” Scott continued. “And the FBI thinks the woman’s in danger.”
Andre’s gaze sought Juliette’s. She stared back at him, her eyes wide.
“What did they get from the gunmen? Are they talking yet?”
“Yeah. I spoke to Froggy. Turns out they took an initial payment for grabbing this woman, and they were expecting more when the job was finished.”
“Who paid them?” Was Juliette right? Was it her ex?
“These idiots are claiming they don’t know. Which is either true, or they’d worked out their stories together beforehand. They say they were approached anonymously, that it was supposed to be easy money. Grab her, do the job, then get the other half of the money when the deal was complete.”
“And they didn’t think it was some kind of setup? Or just take the first payment and run?”
Scott sighed. “They both seem to think a cop hired them.”
“A cop?” Andre scoffed. “They think a cop hired a pack of ex-cons to kidnap a marketing employee at gunpoint out of her workplace?” He watched Juliette go pale and frowned. “That makes no sense at all. What kind of cop would send these guys in on such a flawed plan?”
“Well, it wasn’t the original plan,” Scott said. “Right now, because the third guy fired in that office building on FBI agents and they’re all going to face some serious sentences, the two we’ve got in custody are tripping over each other trying to make deals. The case agents have them separated, but they’re getting the same story.”
“What are they saying?”
“The hostage grab out of the office building was the criminals’ plan. They wanted it to hit the news, so their anonymous employer would see it. They were planning to grab her and demand a higher payout for her delivery.”
“Okay,” Andre said slowly. “That does make more sense. So, the original plan was to grab her more quietly, then make the trade in some deserted location? Juliette for the money?”
“I wish that was the case,” Scott answered. “But the plan wasn’t to grab her at all. And apparently the second guy—the one you tackled on the path—was trying to double-cross the other two and get all the money for himself, so there’s no love lost there.”
“So what was the plan?” Andre demanded, a bad feeling settling in his stomach as Juliette’s words came back to him, her fear of taking her ex-husband to court. And suddenly he knew. Her ex-husband was a cop. Her ex-husband was the cop, the one who’d hired three dangerous ex-cons to grab Juliette.
He watched her hands clutch the arms of his chair until her knuckles were bone white. And he could tell she knew the answer to his question without even hearing Scott’s reply.
“They were supposed to kill her, Andre. They were told to snatch her quietly, drive her somewhere secluded, kill her and bury the body.”
“This was never supposed to go public,” Andre said, not taking his eyes off of Juliette.
“No. This woman was supposed to just disappear forever.”
Chapter Four (#u3b908ad4-ed28-507c-bead-817cbbd73eec)
“I need the truth.”
Juliette bristled. “I’m not lying to you.”
“How’d you learn to snatch a weapon off a law enforcement official?” Andre demanded, resting his forearms on his thighs, making all the muscles in his arms tense and reminding her that he wasn’t just strong.
He was also fast.
Juliette scooted to the edge of the chair, in case she needed to make a quick getaway. What had she been thinking, coming here? She glanced at the doorway, gauging the distance.
“Too far,” Andre said.
“What?” Panic hitched her voice.
“You’re thinking of making a run for it. I’m telling you that you won’t make it.”
She put her hand on the gun in her pocket, her heart thudding frantically. What if Andre had given his partner some kind of code word in their conversation? Something to let him know to send the cavalry? If they believed Dylan instead of her...
“I’m trying to help you here,” Andre said, his soft voice laced with frustration. “We just determined these thugs were supposed to kill you.”
She cringed, even though it wasn’t news at all. She’d known the second she’d spotted them holding her picture that Dylan had decided to kill her. That it didn’t matter those years they’d spent dating, falling in love. That it didn’t matter they’d pledged their lives to each other.
“Do you really think it’s your best move to run, alone?” Andre interrupted her angry thoughts. “We can protect you.”
“Against someone else in law enforcement?” Juliette snapped. “I’ve tried before. Who is anyone going to believe, me or another cop?”
He stared directly into her eyes, intense and sincere. “I believe you.”
She stamped down the hope she felt at his words and tried to be logical. “Why?”
“You work in this job long enough and you learn. All the training, all the practice, can only take you so far. At a certain point, you just have to go with your gut. And my gut is telling me you’re innocent.” His gaze went to the gun and then back to her face. “Relatively innocent.”
A smile twitched her lips with a sudden, ridiculous urge to laugh at the predicament she’d gotten herself into. She’d never so much as gotten a parking ticket her whole life, and in one day she’d stolen a gun off one federal agent and taken another one hostage. The truth was, they had more on her than anyone had ever gotten on her ex-husband. The smile faded.
“Just level with me, Juliette,” Andre said, his deep brown eyes imploring, almost hypnotizing in their intensity.
A shiver worked its way up her body that had nothing to do with fear and she suppressed it. Letting her attraction for this man lull her into trusting him was a bad idea. No matter whether or not he believed her story, he was still a federal agent. It was still his job to make sure she answered questions about what had happened today, and after her actions over the past hour, the FBI would probably expect her to do it in handcuffs.
Besides, she’d done the whole falling hard for a man with a badge thing before, and it hadn’t worked out too well for her then. She doubted things would go better a second time.
“I told you the truth. Okay, so I said he wanted to kidnap me, and I guess that was wishful thinking. I suppose I knew it. Dylan wants me dead. I’ve been running for years, and now he’s found me. And you can believe if he—or one of his hired goons—catches up to me again, he won’t make the same mistake.”
“You saw something you shouldn’t have seen,” he repeated her words from earlier. “What was it?”
Juliette heaved out a sigh. “Not enough.”
“What does that mean?”
She’d come this far. The man had brought her to his house. He was the first person in years she’d dared to tell even this much. Might as well go for broke.
“My ex was a cop—is a cop. I actually met him when he pulled me over for a broken taillight. He let me go with a warning, but when I ran into him a few weeks later at a club, he asked me out.”
At the time, she’d thought it was some kind of fate, telling her to give Dylan a chance. Later, she’d learned that he’d run her plates, gotten her name and pulled her up on social media. Someone had tagged her at that club, and he’d gone there, specifically intending to bump into her. When he’d finally told her the truth on their honeymoon, she’d been flattered. Now she wondered if it had been a warning sign she’d been too infatuated to see.
“What’s his name?” Andre asked tightly.
“Dylan. Dylan Keane.”
“From Pennsylvania?”
“That’s right. But if you’re planning to dig up his file, don’t bother. He’s got a perfect record at the department. He actually got a commendation from the mayor right after we were married. No one will ever believe he’s dirty.”
“That’s what this is about?” Andre pressed. “That’s what you saw? Something to do with his work?”
“Yeah. Have you ever heard of Kent Manning?”
Andre’s eyes narrowed and his head tilted back, as though he was trying to remember where he’d heard the name.
“The businessman who was killed,” she prompted.
“That’s right. He was a multimillionaire, if I’m remembering correctly. They found him tossed in the lake in some small town in...”
She could tell the instant he realized. “Right. A small town in Pennsylvania. My small town in Pennsylvania.”
“But they caught the guy who killed him. He’s serving a life sentence, isn’t he?”
“He is. Chester Loews was Manning’s direct competitor. With Manning out of the picture, Loews’s company was poised to become the biggest logging supplier in the state.”
“All right. That’s a logical motive for murder. What does all of this have to do with your husband?”
“Ex-husband.”
“Sorry.” Andre gave her a half smile that made a dimple pop in his left cheek. “Believe me, I didn’t forget that part.”
Juliette swallowed, her mouth dry, and wondered what the heck that meant. Was it because he was interested in her?
Get it together, she reminded herself. “Anyway,” she continued, hoping she wasn’t flushed beet red, “what I overheard was my husband meeting with Boyd Harkin. He was Manning’s second-in-command, and when Manning was murdered, Harkin took over the company. He was originally a suspect, too, but the evidence against Loews was so overwhelming, it was a slam dunk. Case closed.”
“But you think Harkin actually killed Manning?” Andre guessed. “You think Loews was framed?”
“I think they were working together and only Loews got caught.”
Andre frowned. “If that’s the case, then why wouldn’t Loews turn on Harkin? Share the prison sentence?”
“I don’t know.”
“Okay.” He was clearly trying hard to be patient. “Why do you think they were working together?”
“My ex-husband and his partner were working the Manning murder case, and I saw Harkin hand my ex-husband a bag.” She’d come home early, unexpected, from her studio because she’d been sick. Harkin had been standing in her kitchen, a big hulk of a man who looked unnatural in a business suit. He’d handed over a brown paper bag, as though he was playing a part in a movie. “Dylan told Harkin he’d keep him out of it, but there was nothing he could do for Loews now.”
“Those were his exact words?” Andre asked.
“Yeah. I thought Dylan was getting the bag to make sure any evidence against Harkin found during the murder investigation would disappear.”
From the way Andre was nodding, he agreed. “And you think that bag contained a payoff?”
“I know it did. I found it later, stashed up in our closet. Dylan thought I didn’t know he hid things there, but I’d seen him do it before.”
“You’d seen him take money before?”
“No.” She gave a sad smile, because not all of her memories of Dylan were bad. She’d loved him once, enough to marry him. “Presents he’d bought me.”
Andre nodded, understanding on his face. “So, what made you run? Did Dylan know you’d spotted him and Harkin?”
“No. They were so busy talking, they never heard me come in.”
“Did he notice the money was moved? What?”
“No. Worse.”
“You confronted him.”
It wasn’t a question, but Juliette answered anyway. “Yes. At first I was sure Dylan would turn him in, but every few days I’d check, and the money was still there. So finally I asked him. I thought for sure he’d tell me there was an undercover operation happening, that they were going to arrest Harkin any day now.”
The memory burst forward in her mind, the moment she’d replayed so many times in the past three years. At first, she’d wished she could take it back, that she’d never seen Dylan accept the money, that she could just stay ignorant. Then, she’d wished to take back different moments, like the instant she’d said yes to his marriage proposal, practically before he could get the question out. Even the more hesitant yes when he’d first asked her out.
“He came home late because he’d been working a big case, but all excited about some cabin one of his buddies was going to lend him for the weekend. He wanted us to go away, just the two of us. Then I told him what I’d seen, and I knew the second I did it that our marriage was over.”
Sadness and pity and some other emotion she couldn’t quite pinpoint flashed across Andre’s face, and she got back to what mattered now. “He told me I needed to forget I’d ever heard that conversation.”
A tremor went through her, recalling the fury in Dylan’s voice, the hard glint she’d never seen before in his eyes. “He said if I ever told anyone, I was signing my own death warrant.”
* * *
ANDRE FOUGHT HARD to keep his expression neutral, not to let Juliette see how badly he wanted to smash her ex’s face in with his fist right now. He was pretty sure he was failing miserably.
She gave him a shaky smile. “This is why I was trying to run. I can’t have my name connected to any kind of investigation or he’ll find me.”
“You do know there’s not some kind of law enforcement bulletin that goes out with everyone’s active cases, right?” Andre joked.
“Yeah, well, when the hostage situation hits the news—if it hasn’t already—he’ll know I’m here. The first thing he’ll do is contact the FBI.”
“I doubt it. That’d be pretty suspicious.”
She snorted. It should have been ugly, but somehow it was cute. “Trust me, he’ll come up with a story everyone will believe. He’s done it before.”
“What do you mean?” Andre asked, remembering her comment that she’d tried to get help in the past, and no one had believed her. “You tried to report him, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.” She sighed and sank back into the chair, her head dropping back and her hands going limp at her sides.
It would be easy to jump up and snatch the gun off her lap now, but he didn’t. He just waited for her to start talking.
“Stupidly, I went to my local department, where he worked.”
“That’s not stupid. It’s logical,” Andre said, even though she probably should have gone to the FBI.
“Maybe it would have made a difference if I’d done it that night, instead of waiting to see if I’d misunderstood. But by the time I finally got the courage to turn him in, he’d already set the groundwork. They were expecting me. He’d told the chief that I’d...” She flushed, her voice getting quieter as she finished, “That I’d had a miscarriage and was suffering from severe depression.”
“Did you?” Andre asked quietly, not even realizing that he’d reached out to take her hand until she lifted her head and looked at it, perplexed.
But she didn’t pull hers away. She just shook her head and continued, “No. But he said the doctor had put me on medication and I was having delusions that everyone was out to get me.”
“And they bought it?” Andre asked with disbelief. “Even when you told them specifics about the money?”
“I never got that far. I tried to talk about Dylan meeting with Harkin, but they just patted me on my head and sent me home. The chief literally patted my head, as if I was a child. And when I got home that night...” She trailed off, as a shiver visibly went through her. “Anyway, that was when I knew I had to run. And I’ve been running ever since.”
“Three years,” Andre said, doing the math from the time he remembered seeing Manning’s death in the news.
“Yeah. Twice before, he’s caught up to me, but I managed to keep running, start over yet again. I thought this time I’d finally gotten away. I should have known better. I’m never going to be free of this.”
“Everything is different now,” Andre promised her.
“How?”
“This time, you’ve got help.” Andre squeezed her hand. “We’re going to nail him to the wall for this.”
He could see hope spark in her eyes, but just as quickly, she seemed to push it down. She carefully pulled her hand free and twisted it nervously in her lap. “How? All we have is the word of two criminals who don’t even know who hired them. And me. A woman using an assumed name who’s probably got a warrant out for her arrest now, too.”
Andre’s mind warred with what to ask next—how she’d managed to get that gun off Nadia in order to earn that possible warrant or what her real name was. He should ask about the gun, since knowing her ex’s name meant he could track hers down. But somehow, the question that came out of his mouth was, “What’s your real name? It’s Mya, isn’t it?”
Her nose crinkled. “Technically, yeah. But Juliette’s my middle name. I’ve gone by Juliette most of my life.”
“Kind of a strange choice for a fake name, then,” Andre commented.
“Yeah, probably, but I’m sure Dylan expected me to use Mya and a different last name.” He must have looked confused, because she added, “He called me Mya. He was the only one who did when we met, and we were only married for a year, but over the time we knew each other, my social circle just kept shrinking, and somehow I ended up in his. So by the end, no one called me Juliette anymore.”
“Controlling,” Andre muttered.
“It’s not what you think. He wasn’t cruel or abusive or anything, just...” She seemed to search for the right word, finally settling on manipulative.
Andre thought about arguing, because her relationship with her husband sure sounded abusive—maybe not physically but definitely psychologically. But the truth was, no matter the attraction he’d felt from the second he’d met her or how he wanted to help her now, her relationship with her ex wasn’t any of his business. So instead he just said, “You wanted to reclaim the name for yourself.”
“Exactly. I wasn’t Mya Moreau anymore or Mya Keane. I was Juliette Lawson. Lawson was my grandma’s maiden name.” She fidgeted. “I got some fake documents, just enough to get me by—a driver’s license and a social security number. I knew how from hearing Dylan talk about some of his cases. Anyway, my grandma and I were close when I was little, back in England. She was my rock, so that’s why I wanted to use her name. It wasn’t until after she died that my parents sent me away to boarding school here in the US.”
He made a face.
“They weren’t bad people. They just didn’t know what to do with a kid. The boarding school was them trying to provide for me in the best way they could.” She shrugged. “I always suspected it was because of my grandma that they didn’t do it sooner. I know I should have picked a totally random name, but I didn’t think...” She flushed and trailed off.
Still, he could guess what she was going to say. She didn’t think her husband paid enough attention to what she wanted or who she was to know her grandmother’s maiden name. But he was a cop; presumably, he knew how to chase a trail.
“None of that matters now,” Andre said. “What matters is we figure out how to turn the tables on him.” He tried to keep his tone even, but he could hear the aggression in his voice when he said, “It’s time for Dylan to be the one jumping at shadows.”
She stared back at him, shadows beneath her eyes and a weary slump to her shoulders. “How are we going to do that?”
“It’s time to call in reinforcements.”
Chapter Five (#u3b908ad4-ed28-507c-bead-817cbbd73eec)
These were some reinforcements.
Juliette actually had to work to keep her jaw from dropping as Andre opened the door and ushered in two men who couldn’t look more different than him. He introduced them as his brothers.
“We’re not blood related,” Cole Walker, Andre’s older brother, said.
Clearly, he’d misunderstood her gaping. Thank goodness. She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but two men equally as attractive as Andre hadn’t been it.
Cole had about two inches on Andre, and with his pale skin, light blue eyes and reddish-blond hair, they were total opposites. Throw in Marcos Costa, the youngest brother, with his jet black hair and piercing bluish hazel eyes, and no one would ever pick any of them as brothers. And yet they acted more like family than anyone who shared blood with her.
And, as she’d learned in the past two minutes, they all worked in law enforcement. Andre, in the FBI; Cole, a police detective just like her ex-husband; and Marcos, a DEA agent.
Women probably saw them together at family outings and wanted to suggest a Hot Men of Law Enforcement calendar. Still, as attractive as his brothers were, it was just Andre who made her pulse jump whenever she stared at him.
Which made no sense, because they barely knew each other. Besides, she should have learned her lesson when it came to instant attraction.
“—not quite what we were expecting,” Marcos said, humor in his voice, and Juliette realized that not only had she not been paying attention, but he’d been talking to her.
“Uh, sorry,” she mumbled.
“Juliette had a long day,” Andre said, earning inscrutable glances from his brothers.
Clearly, they both wondered why he was risking his career to help her. But the family loyalty ran deep, and they walked into Andre’s living room without a word, plopping onto the chairs on either side of the couch.
“What weren’t you expecting?” Juliette asked, trying to catch up.
“You,” Marcos responded with a dimpled grin as he flung his arms over the back of the chair and got comfortable.
“Knock it off,” Andre said.
Although Juliette wasn’t quite sure what he meant, she could tell Marcos was trying not to laugh. Cole was giving him a brotherly warning look, but underneath it, he seemed amused, too.
She had the distinct feeling that she was either the butt of a joke she didn’t understand, or Andre’s brothers thought something more scandalous was happening between her and Andre than a simple felony. Abducting a federal agent at gunpoint was surely a felony, she thought, then tried not to dwell on it.
Andre sat on the couch, and since it was the only seating left, Juliette joined him there, sticking close to the opposite side. No need to tempt herself even further by getting within touching distance of Andre. But nerves still shot through her at his nearness.
She scooted even closer to the far side, shifting so the armrest would hide her weapon. She’d kept her arm strategically placed over the bulging pocket of her cardigan since Andre’s brothers had arrived, but she was pretty sure neither of them had been fooled.
“So, what’s the plan?” Cole asked. “Get us up to speed here.”
When Andre explained the last few hours—glossing over her armed abduction—Cole seemed considerably less amused.
She fidgeted, not liking the idea of Cole and Marcos thinking poorly of her. Their opinions shouldn’t matter, but it was obvious how close they were to Andre, and already his opinion of her had become very important.
The three men were silent for a long minute, until Marcos burst out, “What a bastard.”
It took her a minute to realize he was talking about her ex-husband. A tentative smile bloomed.
“We start there,” Cole said, nodding at Marcos as though he was agreeing with his brother’s assessment.
Juliette’s shoulders slumped and she hadn’t realized until that moment how tense she’d felt through Andre’s explanation. Although he’d painted it as though her word was all he needed, she’d had no idea what reaction to expect from Cole and Marcos.
Even her own parents hadn’t just blindly believed her when she’d tried to ask them for advice. They’d insisted she must have misunderstood what was happening. Then, they’d gone back to their own lives in England and hadn’t bothered to check back in with her. She wondered what they thought now, if they’d heard about her in the news during the three years since she’d disappeared, and tried to push down the guilt.
“Start where exactly?” Juliette asked. “I wish I did, but I don’t have any proof of the payoff.”
“Well, technically, you do. Your eyewitness testimony,” Cole said. “But that’s not actually what I meant. I think we should investigate this attempt on your life. These cons took a payment for it, right?”
Andre nodded.
“So, there’s a trail. We just need to find it.”
“How?” Marcos asked. “We don’t exactly have the legal authority to go for a warrant. This isn’t our case. But I’m sure the Bureau will be doing that. What about Scott? Can he help?”
“I want to give him plausible deniability here,” Andre replied. “He doesn’t know Juliette came home with me. Right now, the FBI is searching for her. I don’t want him to need to lie for me. Besides, HRT won’t be handling the criminal investigation. That’ll get handed off to the Washington Field Office.”
“So, ask the WFO agents,” Marcos suggested. “They’ll share, won’t they?”
“If they can find the money trail,” Cole said. “But if these criminals don’t even know who paid them, I’m betting it’s pretty hidden. I know someone who can help.”
“Shaye?” Marcos guessed, that same smile flickering on the corners of his lips that had been there when he’d spotted her in Andre’s entryway.
“Yes, Shaye,” Cole replied.
“You sure this isn’t an excuse to see her again?” Marcos teased.
“Whether it is or not,” Andre jumped in, “Cole is right.” He looked at Juliette. “Shaye Mallory is some kind of computer forensics genius who used to work for Cole’s department. If anyone can find a trail, it’s her. Ask her,” he told Cole. “But make sure she’s careful. I don’t want to spread it around why we’re digging.”
“Not a problem,” he said, sitting a little straighter.
Even Juliette could tell he had a crush on this woman. The only question was why Shaye hadn’t jumped at the chance to go out with him. She glanced between the brothers. The same was true of all three of them. What if Andre had a girlfriend? Maybe she’d misread his intent to ask her out when he’d saved her life in the woods this morning.
Wow, had it really been less than twenty-four hours since she’d been on her way to work, thinking everything was going to be normal today? Exhaustion hit so hard she couldn’t stop herself from sinking into the cushions.
“I think that’s our cue,” Cole said.
“You take the big hardship and talk to Shaye,” Marcos teased Cole, “and I’ll start digging into the Manning murder, see if I can get any traction there.”
“And I’ll check into Dylan Keane,” Andre said, a determined edge to his voice.
It wasn’t until Andre stood to walk his brothers to the door that Juliette realized they were leaving because of her. She tried to sit upright again, get focused, but the stress of the day had finally caught up to her, and her body didn’t want to obey.
“Thank you,” she called after them.
Then Andre was back, scooping her off the couch as if she weighed nothing.
She squeaked—actually squeaked—with surprise and looped her arms around his neck for stability. He smelled vaguely of the woods he’d been running through this morning. On him, the scent of pine managed to be an aphrodisiac. Her voice came out breathy when she asked, “What are you doing?”
“Taking you to bed.”
Suddenly, she wasn’t tired at all. Her body came alive, sensitive to every inch of his arms looped under her back and knees, the solid warmth of his chest pressed against her side. She looked up to discover his face was much closer than she’d expected. If she just tilted her head back and snuggled closer, she could trace her lips over the adorable cleft in his chin, over the tiny dots of scruff just starting to come in, to his mouth.
Her throat went dry at the thought, and her pulse picked up until surely he could feel it. When his gaze met hers, his pupils instantly dilated.
She stared up at him, anxious for him to dip his head and kiss her but not wanting to break the anticipation. She let her gaze slide down to his lips and then back up to his eyes, so there was no mistaking what she wanted.
Some logical part of her was screaming a warning about the last time she’d taken a chance on a man in law enforcement, but logic was not winning against the desire in Andre’s eyes. She could feel the pace of his breathing change beneath her, and his fingers curled into her arm and her leg where he held her. His head lowered, infinitesimally slowly.
Just when she was gripping his shirt to pull herself toward him, he straightened and picked up his pace, striding into a room and dropping her on the center of the bed.
Surprise made her laugh, then nerves kicked in. Kissing Andre was one thing, but she wasn’t sure she was ready for anything more.
But he was already backing out of the room. “You should get some sleep,” he said, then disappeared through the doorway, leaving Juliette alone.
* * *
ANDRE SWORE UNDER his breath as he paced back and forth in the kitchen, forcing himself to stay away from the guest bedroom where he’d just deposited Juliette. He didn’t know what had happened. Despite his attraction to her, his intent had been innocent when he’d picked her up. She was obviously exhausted. He’d planned to let her get some rest.
Then she’d stared up at him as if she wanted to devour him. The memory of it heated him until he opened his freezer and stood in front of it to cool down.
What was it about this woman?
Yes, she was gorgeous, but he knew plenty of beautiful women. And yes, he had a definite thing for a damsel in distress, but despite the challenges Juliette had obviously faced, she wasn’t exactly screaming for someone to save her. The woman had stolen a gun off a federal agent, for crying out loud.
He squinted over at the couch where she’d been sitting and realized he hadn’t imagined it. When he’d lifted her, the gun had dropped unnoticed out of her pocket.
Andre slammed the freezer shut, then walked over and picked it up. He went to empty the bullets and realized there were none. A startled laugh burst forth. Juliette had taken him hostage with an unloaded weapon.
He knew it had been loaded when she’d swiped it off Nadia at Quantico, which meant she’d purposely emptied it before holding it on him. He wasn’t sure if that made the whole situation better or worse, but he took the gun into his room and locked it up.
Then he sank down on the edge of the bed, hearing Juliette toss and turn on the other side of the wall. He should have been polite and offered her a change of clothes to sleep in, a towel and some toiletries to take a shower. But he’d been too desperate to get out of there before he acted on their mutual attraction.
It was bad enough that he’d let her into his house and promised to help her evade the law. He didn’t need to jump into bed with her, too. Because if he did, he’d get way too entangled. And no matter how much he might want to, he was still thinking logically enough to know it was a bad idea.
There wasn’t a good ending here. Even if he helped Juliette prove her ex-husband was guilty, there was still the matter of her stealing Nadia’s weapon and him hiding her from the FBI. If he got involved with Juliette, there’d be even more hell to pay.
As if on cue, his phone rang and the readout said it was Scott.
Andre didn’t have to pick up to know why Scott was calling him back. Somehow, he’d figured out where Juliette had gone.
“I can explain,” he answered the phone.
“Well, that’s good, because Bobby said he thought he saw you on the freeway with this Juliette woman in your passenger seat.”
Bobby was one of their friends on HRT, a monster of a guy who still managed to beat most of the team running the Yellow Brick Road at Quantico.
“I said that couldn’t possibly be true,” Scott continued, “because Juliette—or should I call her Mya?—was on the run, and the FBI was searching for her!”
“There’s more to the story than you think.”
“Well, there better be, because I don’t think the FBI is going to appreciate one of their own agents hiding a fugitive.”
“She was the victim,” Andre reminded him.
“Until she took a weapon off a federal agent,” Scott shot back.
Keeping her other illegal action under wraps, Andre said, “She emptied the bullets. You’ll probably find them in the parking lot.”
“Great. She still stole the gun. What’s going on?”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you when you called before, but she’s in trouble, okay?”
“So you gave her a lift off FBI property and hid her when you found out she’d snatched Nadia’s weapon?”
“Not exactly. I’m just trying to help her. Her ex-husband is the cop who hired those goons to kill her.”
There was a beat of silence, then Scott asked, “Can she prove it?”
“If she could prove it, do you think she’d be running?”
“Touché. Well, don’t you think she’s better off in FBI custody, where we can keep her safe?”
“I’m keeping her safe.”
Scott swore. “This isn’t exactly a career-advancing move you’re making here.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“I mean, you could be in serious trouble. If she’s in danger, the FBI will help her, but she can’t just take an agent’s weapon.”
“Yeah, I got it,” Andre snapped.
“I’m just trying to help you,” Scott said softly. “What do you really know about this woman? Don’t mess up your career for her.”
Scott’s argument was perfectly logical. Andre knew he was right. But still... “I can’t walk away from her. She’s totally alone, and she’s got a cop gunning for her.”
Although Andre had never found himself in her particular predicament, he did know exactly what it was like to be all alone in the world, and to feel as if the people who were supposed to help you had turned their backs. He’d gotten lucky, moving into the foster home with Cole and Marcos when he was nine. Before that, after his family had died, was a time he didn’t want to think about too much.
The abuse had been sporadic. He’d think everything was fine, and then out of the blue, his foster father would knock him down the stairs. He’d tried to get help, but the person he’d told hadn’t believed him, and he’d been too young to realize he should try again. Instead, he’d learned to be invisible.
Four years after he’d been put in that house, social services had gotten suspicious. They’d taken all the kids away, and Andre had been moved somewhere else. He’d expected the same thing, but instead, that very first day, Cole had somehow known what he’d been through. He’d told Andre that things would be different now, because he had a big brother to watch out for him.
The memories faded as Andre realized Scott had been saying something. “Sorry. What?”
There was an audible sigh on the other end of the line. “What can I do?”
“I was trying to keep you out of it. I don’t want to mess you up here.”
“Yeah, well, I should have realized earlier you avoided my question about whether you’d seen Juliette leave Quantico. I’m in it now. We’re partners. I’ve got your back.”
Andre smiled, knowing how lucky he’d been to have had Scott assigned as his partner. He’d gotten a whole new brother that day. “Thanks, man.”
“Just try not to get us both kicked off the team for this, okay?”
Scott’s tone was light, but Andre knew it was no joke. “We need to find the proof to connect her ex to the attempt on her life. And tomorrow, when I come in, I’ll bring Nadia’s weapon. I’ll say I found it in the parking lot. It will be kind of true.”
“You’re coming in tomorrow?” Scott asked. “What about Juliette?” He paused. “Or do I call her Mya?”
“Juliette.” Andre frowned. “Good point. I shouldn’t leave her by herself. I doubt Keane could track her to my place, but I don’t want to take any chances.”
“Keane? That’s his name?”
“Yeah. Dylan Keane. He’s a cop out of Pennsylvania. She saw him take a payoff connected to the murder of Kent Manning.”
Scott swore. “Okay, tomorrow I’ll go see my fiancée and my sister at WFO, then use it as an excuse to drop in on the case agents, try to whisper that name in their ears and see what pops.”
“I’m going to see what I can find from here.”
“Good luck. And, Andre?”
“Yeah?”
“Try not to fall for this woman.”
Too late. Instead of blurting his instant reaction, Andre replied, “I’ll do my best. Thanks for the help.”
Then he opened up his laptop. “All right, Dylan Keane. Time to dig up your skeletons.”
Chapter Six (#u3b908ad4-ed28-507c-bead-817cbbd73eec)
A soft thud woke Juliette from a deep sleep. She blinked, her heart racing, as she tried to get her bearings. She was lying under a soft blue coverlet in an unfamiliar room. For a minute, she panicked, until sleep cleared and she remembered. She was at Andre’s house.
Everything was fine, she reminded herself. She tried to calm her pulse, which was still erratic, as if it knew something her brain didn’t. Then she heard it again: another noise, this time a thump. Like someone was in the house. Someone besides Andre, whom she’d heard go into the bedroom, away from the noise, hours ago.
Judging by the darkness of the room, even with the shades partially open, it was the middle of the night. The sort of time someone would try to break in if they wanted to snatch her away while a federal agent slept in the next room.
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Elizabeth Heiter
Take the shot…or take a chance?FBI Sniper Andre Diaz saved Juliette Lawson from a deadly hostage situation. But only hours later, he receives the surprise of his life when she takes him hostage in order to escape Quantico. Now the federal agent knows just how desperate Juliette is to stay hidden from her dangerous cop ex-husband.Putting her trust in another law enforcement officer is difficult. Yet Juliette senses Andre is definitely one of the good guys. Perhaps he truly can protect her from the secrets she’s been running from—unless her deadly past catches up with them both first.
Take the shot…or take a chance?
FBI sniper Andre Diaz saved Juliette Lawson from a deadly hostage situation. But only hours later, he receives the surprise of his life when she takes him hostage in order to escape Quantico. Now the federal agent knows just how desperate Juliette is to stay hidden from her dangerous cop ex-husband.
Putting her trust in another law enforcement officer is difficult. Yet Juliette senses Andre is definitely one of the good guys. Perhaps he truly can protect her from the secrets she’s been running from—unless her deadly past catches up with them both first.
The Lawmen: Bullets and Brawn
He stared directly into her eyes, intense and sincere. “I believe you.”
She stamped down the hope she felt at his words, tried to be logical. “Why?”
“My gut is telling me you’re innocent.” His gaze went to the gun and then back to her face. “Relatively innocent.”
A smile twitched her lips, and she felt the sudden, ridiculous urge to laugh at the predicament she’d gotten herself into. She’d never so much as gotten a parking ticket her whole life and in one day, she’d stolen a gun off one federal agent and taken another one hostage.
“Just level with me, Juliette,” Andre said, his deep brown eyes imploring, almost hypnotizing in their intensity.
A shiver worked its way up her body that had nothing to do with fear. Letting her attraction for this man lull her into trusting him was a bad idea. Whether or not he believed her story, he was still a federal agent.
Bodyguard with a Badge
Elizabeth Heiter
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ELIZABETH HEITER likes her suspense to feature strong heroines, chilling villains, psychological twists and a little romance. Her research has taken her into the minds of serial killers, through murder investigations and onto the FBI Academy’s shooting range. Elizabeth graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in English literature. She’s a member of International Thriller Writers and Romance Writers of America. Visit Elizabeth at www.elizabethheiter.com (http://www.elizabethheiter.com).
For my amazing agent, Kevan Lyon.
Thank you for believing in me.
Acknowledgments (#u3b908ad4-ed28-507c-bead-817cbbd73eec)
Thank you to Paula Eykelhof, Denise Zaza, Kayla King and everyone involved in bringing Bodyguard with a Badge to shelves. Thanks to fellow Intrigue authors Barb Han, Janie Crouch and Tyler Anne Snell for #AllTheWords. And thanks to my family and friends for their endless support, with a special thanks to my usual suspects for their manuscript feedback and support: Chris Heiter, Robbie Terman, Andrew Gulli, Kathryn Merhar, Caroline Heiter, Kristen Kobet, Ann Forsaith, Charles Shipps, Sasha Orr, Nora Smith and Mark Nalbach.
Contents
Cover (#udb401241-b25a-5e41-bd7a-10ea72274731)
Back Cover Text (#ufd1951dc-0371-5047-9017-e8f2e64be909)
Introduction (#u59bb6d3e-7307-5a1d-b1ba-a21a27b13b5a)
Title Page (#ua64d06c4-f926-5c53-b788-29d0a39aba55)
About the Author (#u5dcd6cc8-22ef-5f7c-bc73-893341240161)
Dedication (#u298926af-04a0-5af7-b0b2-9c6b38031b4e)
Acknowledgments (#ud5be4a97-f90d-595d-8652-ea5dcb60ac5b)
Chapter One (#ub669b639-f1c2-52ce-8d5f-5e47b07e0f7f)
Chapter Two (#u775b00b0-551a-56eb-8f4e-3b6c8e13679d)
Chapter Three (#ufb990e7b-53ad-52a8-91d9-124a38157fbb)
Chapter Four (#uf017bac9-1305-5672-bac5-fcc94a910451)
Chapter Five (#u427cb3e2-bb57-5de2-b5a5-15f9f4a0195f)
Chapter Six (#ub4630218-8ad0-5c62-825b-b510629852fc)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#u3b908ad4-ed28-507c-bead-817cbbd73eec)
Andre Diaz lurched upright, disoriented and unable to see through the thick smoke swirling in his bedroom. He sucked in a breath and instantly choked, even as his tired brain attempted to figure out what was happening.
“Andre! Get up!”
His older brother’s voice cut through his growing fear and Andre threw off his covers and jumped out of bed, almost tripping.
“We have to move,” Cole told him, his ever-calm voice laced with barely contained panic.
Andre stumbled through the dark room, each breath labored. Out in the hallway, light beckoned, but as he joined his brothers in the doorway, he realized it wasn’t because someone had flicked a switch.
The house was on fire.
“Hold on to me,” Cole insisted. “Marcos, grab Andre. Don’t let go. Come on.”
Andre clutched his older brother’s shirt and he felt his younger brother’s hand on his shoulder as the three of them hurried toward the stairwell. They ducked low to avoid the flames that seemed to be leaping all around them.
The walls were on fire. Andre looked up. The ceiling was on fire, too.
Finally, they reached the stairs and Cole picked up the pace. They were both coughing now, so whatever Cole yelled back at him, Andre couldn’t understand.
His eyes were watering, too, and he couldn’t see anything but flames lunging closer as he stumbled down the stairs, faster and faster, desperate for air. But every breath brought smoke deeper into his lungs.
Then, he could see it. The door was open. He could see outside.
But could he reach it? His lungs hurt, and his body was starting to shut down from lack of air. His eyes felt swollen and useless, and even though Cole was a step ahead of him, he knew it only because he still clutched his brother’s shirt. All he could see was that open doorway ahead, the sun beginning to rise on the horizon.
But finally, he was stepping into the fresh air, falling onto the newly cut grass, coughing and coughing, feeling as if he’d never get oxygen into his aching throat.
Through his haze, he heard Cole screaming. Then he saw one word form on his brother’s lips: “Marcos!”
Andre looked back and realized Marcos hadn’t made it out behind him. The doorway he’d come through was now engulfed, flames reaching for the front porch.
Andre tried to get to his feet so he could race back to the house, but his knees kept buckling. Then Cole’s arms were around him, holding him in place, even as Andre yelled for his younger brother. But no one else was coming through that flaming doorway, and suddenly sparks flew from the post on the front porch, and half of the roof collapsed.
Andre jerked awake in his bed, his heart thundering against his ribs. He was drenched in sweat, his breathing erratic, as though he was still inside that burning house.
“You got out,” he reminded himself, throwing his covers aside and getting out of bed on unsteady feet. “We all got out.”
The fire had happened eighteen years ago, when he’d been just fourteen. The first few years afterward, he’d woken up regularly, panicking until he remembered that his younger brother had escaped another way. He hadn’t dreamed about that night in years.
But he knew what had brought it on: the call he’d gotten last night at work. A family trapped inside their house. The father had set it on fire and was holding a gun on his wife and son, determined that they’d all die together. The firefighters couldn’t go inside to save them without being shot.
The FBI had gotten the call from the local police, whose only sniper was out of commission. Andre’s team had gone in, and he’d been the one to take the shot from the roof of the house across the street, through the second-story bedroom window.
He’d killed a man in front of his family, but it meant the firefighters had been able to enter the house. They’d gotten the wife and son out, alive and amazingly unharmed. Except for the nightmares they’d both surely have for years, too.
Beside his bed, a persistent buzzing caught his attention and he realized he’d been receiving texts. He swiped a hand over his forehead and grabbed the work cell phone he always kept close.
It was a triple-eight call from his boss at the FBI’s elite Hostage Rescue Team, where he’d worked for the past four years as a sniper. Triple eight meant an emergency.
Of course, at HRT, they were already part of what the FBI called their Critical Incident Response Group. So no call was low priority. But triple eight was as high as it got.
It meant no time for even a two-minute shower, so he tossed aside the boxers he’d been wearing and traded them for cargos and a T-shirt, yanking up his flight suit over it. His FBI-issued rifle and the rest of the gear he carried on a mission were in a lockbox in the trunk of his sedan.
Andre double-timed it down the stairs of his little house and hopped in his car, still trying to shake off his dream, and hoping it wasn’t an omen for what was to come today.
The information in the text was minimal, but it was enough to get his adrenaline going for a different reason. They were going to a hostage call at an office building not far from where he worked at Quantico. Multiple gunmen, multiple hostages.
At 7:00 a.m., the sun was just beginning to rise, and it instantly took him back to the dream he’d just left, those moments outside the house, frantic to get to Marcos. He slapped his siren on the roof, punched down on the gas and wove around a long line of cars. “Mind on the mission,” he told himself.
He dialed his partner, Scott Delacorte, and soon Scott’s gruff voice filled his car. “We don’t know much. The gunmen are in a marketing company office up on the third floor. Employees there start early and leave early, to avoid some of the rush-hour traffic. So we could have a lot of hostages, but we’re hoping none of the other companies in that building have started the day yet. Police are holding the scene.”
“Any news on what the gunmen are after? Any communications? Do we know if they’ve fired shots?” Was this a hostage-taking situation or an active shooter?
“The call came in to 911 ten minutes ago from a secretary who managed to hide in the storage room. She told the operator there were multiple armed men—at least three—and at the time of the call, they hadn’t started shooting. She thought they were searching for someone.”
That might be good or bad. Good if the person they were after hadn’t arrived yet; maybe the gunmen would leave, and HRT could nab them on the way out. Bad if the gunmen had a specific target they wanted to take out. Once they did, they might eliminate anyone else in their way.
Still, the setup was strange. A single gunman searching for a particular victim—maybe a spouse or stalking target—wasn’t that unusual. But multiple gunmen, after one target? That was overkill. What single target at a small, independently owned marketing company would warrant that kind of firepower? It didn’t quite fit.
“That’s odd,” was all Andre said aloud.
“Agreed. But the secretary’s in the storage room. Who knows how well she’s pegged the situation?” The screaming siren from Scott’s end stopped. “I’m here. Gonna set up and get on the scope. Northwest corner, we’ve got woods, a nice trail that actually leads right out the back door of the office building and up a little hill. The whole thing is pretty hidden. I’m looking through my binoculars right now and I see a good sniper perch about a quarter mile up. How far out are you?”
“One minute.”
“Make it faster,” Scott said and cut the connection.
Andre pushed the gas pedal down to the floor, blaring his horn over the siren and whipping around the few drivers obnoxious enough not to get out of his way. Thirty seconds later, he was at the office complex.
He flashed his badge to the police officers stationed at the entrance to the complex, which was nestled in the woods. Thankfully it was off the beaten track enough that they shouldn’t have to worry about the potential collateral of the pedestrians and gawkers they’d get if they were closer to the city.
The cops let him pass, and he flew into the parking lot, screeching to a stop next to his boss’s big green SUV. He yanked his gear out of the trunk as his boss gave him the rundown.
“We don’t know much more than what Scott already gave you,” Froggy told him. The guy had been a navy SEAL before joining the FBI, and the nickname was a humorous nod to his past. “Go join Scott and get me some more intel.”
“You got it.” Andre slung his rifle over his back, slipped his gear bag over his shoulder and slid his Glock pistol out of the holster he’d put on while he drove. He popped his earbud in, and turned on the bone mic at his neck. It nestled against his voice box, so all he’d need to do was speak and his whole team could hear him. Then, he was on the move.
He ran around the corner of the office building, Glock ready in case one of the gunmen decided to try to rabbit out the back. Then he spotted the half-hidden trail Scott had mentioned and jogged onto it, increasing his pace even as the incline up the hill got more and more steep. Every minute counted for the hostages inside.
“I cleared you a spot,” Scott said, not taking his eyes off the scope as Andre settled into the patch of dirt his partner indicated.
Andre dropped his gear beside him and set up his rifle, dialing in the specifics for wind and altitude that Scott read off to him. And then he was peering through his own rifle scope, into the third floor of the office building.
He scanned from left to right across the whole floor, taking in the situation. A gunman stood in the front room, a Bluetooth receiver in his ear and tattoos climbing out the top of his shirt. He clutched a semiautomatic pistol with both hands, but he kept checking the paper he held crumpled against the stock of his gun. On the floor around him were eight men and women in business clothes. Some held on to one another, two were in tears, and they were all avoiding the gunman’s gaze as though he’d already warned them not to look at him. But no one appeared to be injured. Not yet.
Andre pulled back up to the gunman, dialing in a little closer, trying to see what was on the paper that was so interesting. He was speaking angrily, but Andre didn’t think he was talking to the hostages.
“Phone’s on,” Scott said, seeming to read Andre’s mind.
They’d been partners for two years now, and Scott had become practically a third brother to Andre. Half the time on missions, they didn’t need words at all. “We know who he’s talking to?”
“I think it’s the second gunman.”
Andre swung farther right and found the other guy. He, too, had a cell phone, clipped to his waist, with an earphone in one ear. He held a semiautomatic, and he kept glaring down at a piece of paper as he wrenched open one door after the next, clearly searching for someone.
He pulled open another door and aimed his weapon at the woman cowering inside on the floor, surrounded by stacks of paper and printer cartridges. She yanked her hands up over her head, a phone dropping to the floor.
“Shit,” Scott said as the gunman’s grip shifted and Andre was able to zoom in closer and get a glimpse of what was on the paper he held.
“It’s not her he’s looking for,” Andre said, keying his mic so the rest of the team could hear. “This guy’s carrying a picture of a woman. Mid-to late-twenties, blondish-brown hair.” A beautiful woman, with a sad smile. Not an easy face to miss. “She’s not one of the hostages in the front room.”
Andre widened his view again as the gunman waved the woman in the storage closet toward the other hostages. She scurried out of the room, then dropped down next to her coworkers, as the second guy continued to open doors, looking angrier and more frustrated with every empty room.
“I thought the secretary told us there were at least three shooters,” Andre said, continuing his search.
“She did, but I’ve only seen two. We’ve got operators in place right outside the front door. They’re ready to storm the building if these guys start shooting, but ideally we identify the location of all the shooters first. If this goes bad, I’ve got the one with the hostages, okay? You take the other guy.”
“Got it,” Andre affirmed. But only Froggy could give the word to take any shots. If that happened, he’d have to shoot through the window and time it when the second gunman was in his line of sight, which could get dicey. The guy was heading into the back of the office now, where Andre didn’t have an angle on him.
Scott swore and Andre asked what was wrong at the same time as Froggy.
“I found the last gunman.”
“Where is he?” Andre asked, continuing his methodical search.
“He slipped out the back door. He’s heading up the trail right now, straight for us. And the woman they were hunting for? She’s with him, and he’s got a gun pointed at her head.”
Chapter Two (#u3b908ad4-ed28-507c-bead-817cbbd73eec)
He’d found her. After all this time, she’d finally started to feel safe again, as if she didn’t have to constantly look over her shoulder. But somehow, he’d found her and sent his goons after her.
These stupefied thoughts ran through Juliette Lawson’s mind as she put one foot in front of the other. Her body had gone numb, but she could still feel the exact spot where the cold metal of a gun barrel pressed against her head.
The thug walking behind her had grabbed her just when she’d thought she was going to escape. She’d been in the bathroom when she’d heard screaming that morning. She’d peeked out in time to see three men enter, holding pictures of her. She’d never seen any of them before, but she knew why they’d come.
Initially, she’d darted back into the bathroom, hoping to hide, praying they wouldn’t find her, that they’d just leave. But it soon became clear hiding wouldn’t work, so she’d tried to slip down the back stairs. Just as she’d been reaching for the door to the exit, this one had come up behind her and put a gun to her head. He’d led her out the back door, out of sight of the police officers gathered in the distance and farther away from help.
She’d considered screaming, but fear had trapped it in her throat and then she’d realized if she did yell for help, he’d probably shoot.
Now, the gunman jabbed her with his weapon every few steps, pressuring her to move faster up the little dirt trail through the woods. But they were moving uphill at a steep angle, and she was wearing heels. If she picked up her pace any more, she was going to stumble. And the faster she walked, the less chance she had of figuring out a way to escape before he reached the next step of his plan.
Juliette knew the next step of his plan was to do one of two things: either get her somewhere secluded and kill her, or take her back to Dylan. It was like comparing a death sentence to life behind bars. She wasn’t sure which was worse.
But she did know that if Dylan had hired him, this guy had training. Even if by some miracle, she managed to wrestle the gun away from him, he’d be able to take her down. If she ran, he’d probably shoot. And he wouldn’t miss.
She tried to push aside all the regrets she felt, to focus on survival, but one regret kept surfacing. If only she’d never met Dylan Keane. Then maybe she’d still be back in Pennsylvania, still trying to sell the paintings she loved in galleries, instead of trying to be invisible as a graphic designer and spending her days buried in a cubicle.
Now there was a very good chance she wouldn’t even be buried in a shallow grave. There was a good chance she was about to bleed out in the woods, and those cops who’d surrounded the office would eventually find her body. She prayed she’d be the only casualty, and the other gunmen wouldn’t hurt her colleagues.
They had no idea who she really was, no idea what danger they were in just being near her. She’d never thought she’d been putting them in harm’s way, because she’d never expected Dylan would send goons to her work. She’d always figured that if he tracked her down, he’d simply grab her out of her apartment one day and drag her back. Force her to live in that house again, like a prisoner. Or just kill her right there and leave her dead in her apartment until one of her neighbors noticed the smell.
Stop it, Juliette told herself. Morose thoughts weren’t going to get her out of this. She needed a plan. And even though running was pointless, it was probably her best chance.
Up ahead, the trail curved. That was the spot. She’d pretend to stumble, ditch the heels. She’d be able to run faster barefoot.
Her heart started pounding so hard she could hear the blood pumping in her ears. It seemed to block out the other noises off in the distance—the birds chirping, the FBI agent in the parking lot yelling over a loudspeaker at the gunmen, even the big, furious guy behind her insisting she pick up her pace.
The curve got closer and closer, until she knew it was time. Her heart felt out of control as she let out a squeak and pretended to trip on a protruding branch, going down on her knees and sliding out of her heels as though they’d come off in the fall. The guy’s hand closed around her arm, but the gun came down. It was no longer pointed at her head.
This was her chance.
She readied herself to shove upward, to knock him down and run as fast as she could, zigging and zagging the way Dylan had taught her, back before he realized he might not want her to escape a bullet. But she never had the chance to try.
A figure flew out of a tree, crashing past her and onto her attacker in a tangled blur of arms and legs and guns.
Juliette yelped and scurried free. The new man was armed too, a Glock strapped to his hip, and a whole slew of other equipment attached to his body that suggested he was in the military. He was all motion, just smooth brown skin and bulging muscles and full of confidence as he drew back a fist and sent it crashing into the gunman’s jaw.
The gunman took the hit with a growl and tried to flip the new guy, but Juliette didn’t wait around to see who’d come out on top or how long the fight would last. She caught a glimpse of intense, dark brown eyes on her rescuer and decided he was some kind of Special Operations soldier. She had no idea what he was doing in the woods, but she said a silent thank you and stumbled to her feet, darting off the trail.
She was pretty sure the soldier was going to prevail in the fight happening behind her, but even if he wasn’t with the law enforcement surrounding the office complex, he’d surely turn her over to them.
And then there was no question what would happen next: she’d be headed straight back to Dylan, straight back to the life she thought she’d finally escaped.
* * *
“WHAT DO YOU think you’re doing?”
A strong hand closed around her arm, bringing Juliette to a stop. Her bare feet almost slid out from underneath her on the trail, which was slippery from the leaves that had begun falling off the trees a week ago. Before she could go down, her rescuer dropped his hand from her arm to her waist, catching her.
“It’s over,” he said, his voice reassuring. His fingers pressed into the top of her hip, keeping her from making another run for it, away from everyone. “The guy’s in handcuffs. You’re safe.”
Juliette stared up at him. He probably had four inches on her height of five foot six, just enough so she had to tip her head back to look him in the eyes. They were deep brown, almost hypnotizing the way they were locked onto hers as though he didn’t see anything else in the world right now.
She knew it was only because he was trying to convince her everything was going to be okay, but that didn’t stop a shiver of awareness from working its way up from her toes.
Thank goodness he misunderstood the reason. He told her, “I’m Andre Diaz, with the FBI. I promise you, you’re safe with me, okay? And we’re going to get your colleagues out of there. But right now, I need you to come with me.”
Instead of letting go of her waist, he led her back down the trail toward the parking lot, guiding her like she was in shock. Which maybe she was, because she couldn’t believe any of this was happening.
She’d been on the run for three years. She’d managed to hide, to somehow stay one step ahead of Dylan all that time. And now it was over.
Those first few months, heck, that entire first year, she’d jumped at every noise and slept with the lights on most nights. But lately, she’d found herself relaxing. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d looked over her shoulder or run to her car clutching her mace in one hand, certain one of Dylan’s lackeys was on her trail.
She’d let her guard down, created a new life for herself. It hadn’t been a full life, but it had been hers. And now it was over.
Glancing at Andre as he helped her down the trail, carefully avoiding any sharp sticks or rocks on the trail because of her bare feet, tears blurred her vision. Not out of fear, but because someone cared enough to bother helping her. She blinked them away.
Now wasn’t the time to get emotional because some guy was doing his job, because apparently some members of law enforcement really were on the side of the victims. And now really wasn’t the time to fixate on the feel of his strong hand grasping the top of her hip as he led her to all those blinking red and blue lights in front of her office building. But she couldn’t help but be hyperaware of the pure masculine scent of him beside her, the ridiculously hard bicep pressing into her back.
She dragged her feet as they hit the concrete, glancing up at the third floor where all her colleagues were, terrified because of her. And she realized Andre had carefully led her to a vehicle on a path that kept her completely out of view of the windows up on the third floor.
“Hop in here,” he told her, holding open the back of an SUV with tinted windows. When she hesitated, he added, “It’s my boss’s vehicle. You’ll be okay. It’s surrounded by my team, and there’s no way anyone’s getting past them. When this is over, we’ll get you home safely.”
She hesitated once more, because she could never go home again. Not to any of the places she’d ever called home over the years.
Then, the tat, tat, tat of a semiautomatic boomed, followed by two more shots in quick succession, and someone let out a piercing scream.
Juliette spun toward the sound, dreading what she was going to see—who had gotten hurt because of her. But she never found out, because Andre shoved her into the SUV and dove on top of her.
The weight of him flattened all the air from her lungs, and the awareness she’d felt earlier when he’d simply had his hand on her waist multiplied, making her skin seem to buzz wherever it touched his. Even though he was simply protecting her, she was suddenly keenly aware of how long it had been since someone had held her.
She tried not to squirm and prayed she wasn’t flushed deep red as he spoke into some kind of communications device she realized went from his ear to a microphone at his neck. Then just as quickly, he was helping her up.
She felt dazed, still trying to catch her breath as he told her, “It’s over. All of your colleagues are okay.”
“What?” The word came out breathy and filled with disbelief. How could it possibly be over that fast? And how could everyone be unharmed?
He gave her a grin that made a dimple pop on one side and said, “We’re good at what we do.”
She stared back at him, taking in all the details she hadn’t noticed before: his cleanly shaved head, the cleft in his chin, the complete focus in his eyes. Beneath that, genuine warmth, as if he really cared what happened to her and it wasn’t just his job to keep her safe for the next few minutes.
Don’t fall for him, she chanted in her head. She’d just met him. She knew nothing about him, other than that he was willing to put his life on the line for others.
She’d fallen for Dylan that way: instantly. A sudden, ridiculous attraction that she’d mistakenly thought was love. She’d fallen for all the things she thought she’d seen in him that had turned out not to be true. And she was seeing all those qualities in Andre’s eyes right now: the goodness, the honesty, the protectiveness. Except she suspected with Andre, they were actually real.
His gaze seemed to bore into her and then she saw something else: a reciprocal glint of attraction. It made her want to lean closer and tell him the truth about what had happened today. To go through the process she knew they’d want: hours of questioning at some police station or maybe an FBI office, to learn why hired gunmen were after her. To trust that maybe this time someone would believe her story. That maybe this time things could really change. But she couldn’t take the chance.
He smiled at her and gave her a hand out of the vehicle.
One of the other agents, dressed as if he was going to war, slapped him on the back and said, “Why don’t you give her a ride back to Quantico? The locals are asking us to take the lead, since these gunmen might be professionals. We’re going to need a debrief.”
She could tell from Andre’s dimpled smile that when the questioning was over, he was going to ask her out. In another life, she would have said yes.
Too bad she’d never see him again after today.
* * *
“AREN’T YOU GOING to stick around and see if you can drive this woman home?” Scott teased, just as Andre thought he’d made a clean getaway.
Andre spun around in the Quantico parking lot, where they’d driven after the situation was contained. The gunman who’d fired in that office had been shot by one of HRT’s operators, but the other two had been brought in wearing handcuffs. They had both gone silent as soon as they were arrested, demanding lawyers, but the FBI had been able to ID them quickly anyway, because they had criminal records. Strangely, the woman Scott was talking about had gone just as silent as the gunmen. She claimed she didn’t know why they were after her, when clearly she did.
“Which woman?” Andre parried, even though he knew Scott wasn’t about to let him off the hook that easily.
“Juliette. Or was it Mya?”
That was the other problem. The woman he’d rescued on that hill had identified herself as Juliette Lawson. So had her colleagues. But the name scrawled next to her picture that the gunmen had all been carrying was Mya.
When they’d mentioned it to Juliette, she’d gone pale and made a beeline for the women’s bathroom, where she’d been for the past hour, either sick or just hiding out.
The fact was, Andre had planned to ask her out. From the second their eyes had met inside his boss’s SUV, he’d known he was in trouble. Sure, she was gorgeous, with those wide hazel eyes framed with insanely dark lashes, and all that long, golden-tinted brown hair that had come loose from her messy bun when he’d tackled her. The soft, womanly curves that had cushioned his fall were pretty tempting, too. But what had really done him in was the way she’d stared back at him, the look in her eyes equal parts vulnerable and strong.
He’d driven her back to Quantico, making small talk on the ride, trying to get to know her a little better. She’d seemed shy, shell-shocked, but definitely interested. He’d intended to wait around until the regular agents had finished questioning her, then ask if he could make a detour to dinner on the way back to her car. But that was when he’d thought she was a simple victim.
He should have known from the beginning there was more to it, because the crime itself was so strange. Why send three heavily armed men after one small woman in a third-floor office building?
In fact, why do it in such a high-profile way at all? Why not have one man grab her on the way to her car before she made it into the office?
She was involved in something. The fact was, she was probably guilty of something. And while a woman with a little mystery had always been a draw for him, a woman who would break the law he worked to uphold was of no interest.
Andre shrugged at his partner, who’d been his friend too long not to see exactly what Andre wasn’t saying. “I’m not sure I need that kind of drama.”
“There’s always Nadia,” Scott said.
Nadia Petrova was a fellow agent, who worked as a weapons training specialist at the FBI Academy, which was located at Quantico with HRT. She’d made no secret of her interest in Andre, and it was getting more and more difficult to sidestep her hints without hurting her feelings.
“I think I want to be the one in the relationship with the bigger guns,” Andre joked. The truth was, Nadia was nice enough, but there just wasn’t any spark.
Scott snorted and slapped him on the arm. “All right. Well, after these last couple of calls back-to-back, I’m heading home. Froggy says you can do the same if you want. The other team is up now.”
The HRT teams swapped off, so one was always on call if any emergencies came in from across the country while the other teams trained. After the week they’d had, with seemingly one crisis after the next, Andre was ready for some low-key exercises. Like rappelling out of helicopters and practicing with his MP5 for mock hostage situations inside one of the old 747-airplane hulls they kept on hand.
“See you tomorrow,” Andre said, digging around in his duffel for wherever he’d stuck his keys as Scott hopped in his SUV and sped away, leaving Andre alone in a lot full of cars but empty of people.
When he’d pulled into the lot a few hours ago, there had been nowhere left to park except at the very back, so he meandered that way now, still digging for his keys. It wasn’t until he was a few feet away from his sedan that his agent instincts went on high alert, warning him someone was close. Too close.
He lifted his hands into a defensive position even as his brain reminded him he was in a heavily guarded Marine base and FBI training area. Then he let out a breath and dropped his hands to his sides as he spotted Juliette—or Mya—coming around from the front of his car.
“What are you doing here?” Had she been waiting for him, crouched between the grill of his car and the big tree he’d parked underneath for a little shade? He frowned. Had she been hiding?
“Get in the car,” she said, her voice wobbly.
A smile threatened. “That’s what I was planning,” he said, starting to rethink his plan to ask her out to dinner. Except... “Shouldn’t you still be inside, talking to the case agents?”
The hand that had been wedged between her side and his car came out, pointing a Glock pistol at him. “Get in.” This time, her tone was apologetic.
He stared, dumbfounded. “Where’d you get that?” She certainly hadn’t come into Quantico with a weapon. Had she taken it off someone inside? If so, that meant she was a much bigger threat than she seemed.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and she actually looked it, with her big, teary eyes and her full, trembling lips. “But we need to go. I have to get out of here, which means you’re going to drive me off the base.”
He leaned against his car, eyeing the distance between them, gauging whether he could disarm her without the gun going off. “Why don’t you tell me what this is about? Let me help you.” He kept his voice calm. It was the same tone he’d used last night with the traumatized kid who’d come out of that fire clutching his mother, after watching a bullet come through the window and take out his father.
“No. Please.” Desperation entered her tone as she shifted her awkward, double-handed hold on the gun. “Just get in, okay, and I promise I’ll let you go as soon as you drop me off where I tell you.”
She wasn’t used to holding a weapon, Andre could tell. “You’re going to have a hard time firing that gun with the safety on.”
When she glanced down, he took one slow step forward, almost close enough to disarm her without a chance of her taking a shot. Just one more step and he could do it.
But then her eyes locked on his as she leveled the weapon at his center mass, something hard and determined in her gaze. “There’s no external safety on a Glock,” she replied, all the nerves gone from her voice. “Now get in. We’re going for a ride.”
Chapter Three (#u3b908ad4-ed28-507c-bead-817cbbd73eec)
She’d just taken a federal agent hostage.
And not just any federal agent. No, she’d picked some kind of super-agent, a man who could take down an armed criminal with his bare hands. When he’d flattened her against the floor of his boss’s SUV a few hours ago, she’d discovered he probably had a negative percentage of body fat. He was all hard, solid muscle.
She should be afraid of what he could do with that muscle, especially after her actions tonight, but for some reason, he made her feel safe.
Andre’s hands were tense on the wheel as he drove silently away from Quantico. He hadn’t said a word since they’d gotten in the car and driven past the guard and out of the gated complex. But she knew that wouldn’t last much longer.
What she didn’t know was what she was going to say to him.
It didn’t matter that she’d emptied the gun of its bullets back in the FBI office after she’d slipped it out of an agent’s holster. There was still no excuse for what she’d just done. Not even if it might well save her life.
The armed standoff at her office building had surely made the news by now. Dylan would know his goons had failed. What’s more, he’d know where to find her himself. Heck, if he wanted to, he could probably get into Quantico and drive her away without anyone making a word of protest. Why would they question a fellow law enforcement officer?
“You planning to tell me what this is all about?”
Andre’s question was quiet, almost a whisper, but it still made Juliette jump in her seat as his voice brought her out of her reverie.
“And would you mind aiming that gun somewhere else? I’d prefer it if you didn’t shoot me accidentally.”
“I’m not going to shoot you at all,” Juliette blurted, then silently cursed herself.
But her words didn’t seem to surprise him. He just repeated his request, and she set the gun on her lap, close enough that she could grab it, but not pointed at him anymore.
“Where are we going?” he asked when she didn’t say any more.
She’d directed him to drive out of Quantico but hadn’t given him a location beyond that. The truth was, she had no idea where she was going. Back to her office—where her car was—was a bad idea, because police were surely still there. And by now, Dylan would have both her work and home address.
Her apartment was off limits. All the things she’d worked hard to build for herself here, she’d have to leave behind. But that was a small price to pay for her life.
She’d planned to have Andre drop her off somewhere she could hitchhike out of town. But the exact logistics of getting out of town before the FBI found and arrested her? She hadn’t quite figured those out.
He must have sensed her hesitation, because he suggested, “How about I drive you to my place?”
“What?” She gaped at him. Was this some kind of trick?
“You obviously have nowhere to go,” Andre said, his voice tired. “And I think you need help. Let me help you.”
“I just repaid you for saving my life by taking you hostage!” Juliette flushed as she said it, both at the absurdity of what she’d done and at how ridiculous she was to argue with him if he was really willing to hear her out.
“You also told me you weren’t going to shoot me,” Andre replied, still sounding calm and in control, even though she was the one holding the gun.
A gun that as far as he knew was loaded with bullets. And one she’d proven she knew how to use when she’d told him the Glock didn’t have an external safety.
This had to be a trick. But what choice did she really have? She was tired of running. She wanted her life back. She wanted a real life back. Maybe if she let herself trust him, just for now, Andre could help her get that.
“Okay,” Juliette agreed, amazed the words were coming out of her mouth even as she said them. “Let’s go to your place.”
* * *
THIS WAS A bad idea.
The words echoing in Andre’s head sounded like his older brother, Cole. And even though it was his experience that Cole was almost always right, Andre pushed them aside and held open the door to his house for Juliette.
He watched her glance around the living room curiously, taking in the oversize couch, the comfortable chairs bracketing it, the coffee table stacked with books and coasters. He knew it appeared lived in, the kind of place often overflowing with friends and family. She lingered on the photos lining the table behind his couch—he and his brothers, he and Scott on an overseas mission, his HRT team after a joint training with some navy SEALs. His families.
“You have a nice home,” she said softly. “It’s cozy.”
There was something wistful in her tone, as though she didn’t have memories scattered all around her own place. But for some reason, he had a hard time imagining her not surrounded by people. Instead of asking about it, he said simply, “Thanks. Make yourself comfortable.”
Right now, she seemed as far from comfortable as possible. She’d left her heels somewhere in the woods, so she’d been barefoot ever since, the hem of her slacks collecting dust. She had one hand crammed into the pocket of her cardigan, the outline of the Glock clearly visible. Her hair was a mess, with a few bobby pins valiantly trying to hold up what had started out as a bun, and leaves woven through strands that shimmered under the light. Her pale skin had been flushed from the moment she’d pointed the gun at him.
Maybe if he could get her to relax, he could get a real story out of her. And then he could decide on his next move.
When she just shifted her weight from one foot to the other right inside his door, he closed it behind her and flopped onto his couch across the room, careful not to let the hem of his T-shirt come up. So far, she hadn’t thought to ask, and he didn’t want to give her reason to suspect he was armed. He might be willing to bring her to his house, but there was no way he was handing over his gun.
He was giving her a lot more benefit of the doubt than he normally would. Maybe it was the attraction he’d felt for her the second he’d seen her. More likely it was the vulnerability he kept seeing. He was a sucker for a damsel in distress.
The only problem was, there was a good chance Juliette was involved in something she shouldn’t be. At the very least, she’d taken a weapon off someone, and he couldn’t forget that meant she was more dangerous than she appeared.
Still, he needed her to trust him if they were going to get anywhere. He’d figure out the rest of it from there.
“Have you lived in Virginia very long?” he asked, his tone easy and casual.
She eyed him as though wondering what his angle was, but he just waited patiently, hoping to ease her into conversation.
Finally, she took some hesitant steps forward and settled gingerly on the edge of one of his chairs, far away from him. “A little while.”
“I’ve been here for four years, ever since I got accepted into HRT.” When she looked perplexed, he clarified, “The FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team. The tryouts were brutal, and when they put me in a sniper role, I had to go through extra training with the marines.”
She leaned back into her chair a bit, her expression intrigued, so he kept going.
“The guy you met today, the one who came down that trail we were on? That was my partner, Scott. We’ve worked together for two years. He’s practically my third brother now.” He paused, hoping she’d engage, that he could connect with her and get a real story about what had happened today.
“You have two brothers?” Her gaze went back to the photos, probably searching for someone with any kind of genetic similarity.
“You’ll never pick them out,” he said with a smile. “They’re my foster brothers. We look nothing alike. But we’re closer than blood.” Even after the fire that had destroyed their house, that had very nearly taken Marcos’s life, and had split them apart into separate foster homes, they’d managed to remain family.
“That’s nice,” she replied, and there it was again, that wistful tone.
“You’re not close to your family?”
“No. I grew up in boarding schools.” She said it without anger, just a hint of sadness.
Andre cringed. He only had a vague memory of his biological family, before they’d died in a boating accident when he was five. But that vague memory was tied up in his mother’s arms, holding him close; in his father’s voice, reading him stories. And he had five years of a true, brotherly bond with Cole and Marcos in his second foster home. But before and after that? He knew what it was like to feel all alone, to do his best to go unnoticed because that was the safest way.
He silently cursed. He was already sucked into those wide hazel eyes. He didn’t need any more reasons to feel tied to her, to protect her at all costs, even if she really belonged in jail. His gaze shifted to the bulge in her sweater where she’d stuffed the gun.
“Do you want to tell me what really happened today, Juliette? Who were those men after you?”
“I don’t know.”
He must have looked skeptical, because she immediately insisted, “I don’t know them. But I know who hired them. They had criminal records, right? Probably in Pennsylvania?”
He leaned forward. “How did you know that?”
Her face pinched. “Because my ex-husband hired them to kidnap me.”
“Your ex-husband?” Andre tried to keep the surprise off his face. He didn’t know why he’d expected her never to have been married. It shouldn’t matter one way or another, but he found himself disappointed. “Why would he want to kidnap you?”
She gave him a sad smile. “Let’s just say that the divorce wasn’t amicable. Hell, I don’t even know if it’s official. I filed, and then I ran. But in order for it to be approved, he has to agree to no-fault. I didn’t want to go through a court date, so I didn’t dare file a fault complaint.”
She fidgeted on the chair, avoiding his gaze, and he knew there was more to the story. Probably a lot more.
Anger heated him, and memories flashed through his mind, images he didn’t want to dwell on, from his first foster home. “Did he hurt you?”
“No.” She shook her head, but still didn’t meet his eyes. “But I saw something I shouldn’t have seen, and he knew it. I tried to tell him I’d keep his secret, just to get him to let me go, but he wanted me close. So when I finally accepted that I was in danger, that I had to go, I just filed and ran.”
“Why were you in danger?” Andre forced himself not to lean forward, not to show the aggression he was feeling toward her ex. “Why didn’t you just go to the police for help? Get a restraining order against him?”
She let out a heavy breath. “I couldn’t do that. He was...”
“He was what?” Andre pressed when she went silent for too long. Then his phone rang, and he saw her tense even before he checked the readout. Scott was calling.
He considered letting it go to voice mail, but if someone had spotted Juliette holding a gun on him, he didn’t want his teammates swarming his house in a misguided rescue attempt. “I need to answer this,” he told her. “But you’re safe here, okay?”
He didn’t let her argue, just picked up his cell. “Scott. What’s going on?”
“You didn’t see that woman—Juliette or Mya or whatever her name is—sneak out, did you?”
“Why?” Andre asked, instead of answering, because he hated lying to family.
“She left before they could question her,” Scott said. “You’re not going to believe this, but she actually managed to get a weapon off of Nadia in the restroom.”
“Is Nadia hurt?” If Juliette had disarmed a weapons training agent who could bring fellow agents to tears using her chokehold techniques on the training mats, then Juliette was much more dangerous than he’d suspected.
“Nah, Nadia’s fine. Mostly embarrassed. Apparently this woman has sticky fingers.”
So, Juliette was a pickpocket. Somehow, that didn’t fit. But then nothing about Juliette had fit so far. Still, taking a wallet from an unsuspecting mark on the street was a lot different from getting an agent’s weapon out of its holster.
“Anyway, there’s a lot more to this story,” Scott continued. “And the FBI thinks the woman’s in danger.”
Andre’s gaze sought Juliette’s. She stared back at him, her eyes wide.
“What did they get from the gunmen? Are they talking yet?”
“Yeah. I spoke to Froggy. Turns out they took an initial payment for grabbing this woman, and they were expecting more when the job was finished.”
“Who paid them?” Was Juliette right? Was it her ex?
“These idiots are claiming they don’t know. Which is either true, or they’d worked out their stories together beforehand. They say they were approached anonymously, that it was supposed to be easy money. Grab her, do the job, then get the other half of the money when the deal was complete.”
“And they didn’t think it was some kind of setup? Or just take the first payment and run?”
Scott sighed. “They both seem to think a cop hired them.”
“A cop?” Andre scoffed. “They think a cop hired a pack of ex-cons to kidnap a marketing employee at gunpoint out of her workplace?” He watched Juliette go pale and frowned. “That makes no sense at all. What kind of cop would send these guys in on such a flawed plan?”
“Well, it wasn’t the original plan,” Scott said. “Right now, because the third guy fired in that office building on FBI agents and they’re all going to face some serious sentences, the two we’ve got in custody are tripping over each other trying to make deals. The case agents have them separated, but they’re getting the same story.”
“What are they saying?”
“The hostage grab out of the office building was the criminals’ plan. They wanted it to hit the news, so their anonymous employer would see it. They were planning to grab her and demand a higher payout for her delivery.”
“Okay,” Andre said slowly. “That does make more sense. So, the original plan was to grab her more quietly, then make the trade in some deserted location? Juliette for the money?”
“I wish that was the case,” Scott answered. “But the plan wasn’t to grab her at all. And apparently the second guy—the one you tackled on the path—was trying to double-cross the other two and get all the money for himself, so there’s no love lost there.”
“So what was the plan?” Andre demanded, a bad feeling settling in his stomach as Juliette’s words came back to him, her fear of taking her ex-husband to court. And suddenly he knew. Her ex-husband was a cop. Her ex-husband was the cop, the one who’d hired three dangerous ex-cons to grab Juliette.
He watched her hands clutch the arms of his chair until her knuckles were bone white. And he could tell she knew the answer to his question without even hearing Scott’s reply.
“They were supposed to kill her, Andre. They were told to snatch her quietly, drive her somewhere secluded, kill her and bury the body.”
“This was never supposed to go public,” Andre said, not taking his eyes off of Juliette.
“No. This woman was supposed to just disappear forever.”
Chapter Four (#u3b908ad4-ed28-507c-bead-817cbbd73eec)
“I need the truth.”
Juliette bristled. “I’m not lying to you.”
“How’d you learn to snatch a weapon off a law enforcement official?” Andre demanded, resting his forearms on his thighs, making all the muscles in his arms tense and reminding her that he wasn’t just strong.
He was also fast.
Juliette scooted to the edge of the chair, in case she needed to make a quick getaway. What had she been thinking, coming here? She glanced at the doorway, gauging the distance.
“Too far,” Andre said.
“What?” Panic hitched her voice.
“You’re thinking of making a run for it. I’m telling you that you won’t make it.”
She put her hand on the gun in her pocket, her heart thudding frantically. What if Andre had given his partner some kind of code word in their conversation? Something to let him know to send the cavalry? If they believed Dylan instead of her...
“I’m trying to help you here,” Andre said, his soft voice laced with frustration. “We just determined these thugs were supposed to kill you.”
She cringed, even though it wasn’t news at all. She’d known the second she’d spotted them holding her picture that Dylan had decided to kill her. That it didn’t matter those years they’d spent dating, falling in love. That it didn’t matter they’d pledged their lives to each other.
“Do you really think it’s your best move to run, alone?” Andre interrupted her angry thoughts. “We can protect you.”
“Against someone else in law enforcement?” Juliette snapped. “I’ve tried before. Who is anyone going to believe, me or another cop?”
He stared directly into her eyes, intense and sincere. “I believe you.”
She stamped down the hope she felt at his words and tried to be logical. “Why?”
“You work in this job long enough and you learn. All the training, all the practice, can only take you so far. At a certain point, you just have to go with your gut. And my gut is telling me you’re innocent.” His gaze went to the gun and then back to her face. “Relatively innocent.”
A smile twitched her lips with a sudden, ridiculous urge to laugh at the predicament she’d gotten herself into. She’d never so much as gotten a parking ticket her whole life, and in one day she’d stolen a gun off one federal agent and taken another one hostage. The truth was, they had more on her than anyone had ever gotten on her ex-husband. The smile faded.
“Just level with me, Juliette,” Andre said, his deep brown eyes imploring, almost hypnotizing in their intensity.
A shiver worked its way up her body that had nothing to do with fear and she suppressed it. Letting her attraction for this man lull her into trusting him was a bad idea. No matter whether or not he believed her story, he was still a federal agent. It was still his job to make sure she answered questions about what had happened today, and after her actions over the past hour, the FBI would probably expect her to do it in handcuffs.
Besides, she’d done the whole falling hard for a man with a badge thing before, and it hadn’t worked out too well for her then. She doubted things would go better a second time.
“I told you the truth. Okay, so I said he wanted to kidnap me, and I guess that was wishful thinking. I suppose I knew it. Dylan wants me dead. I’ve been running for years, and now he’s found me. And you can believe if he—or one of his hired goons—catches up to me again, he won’t make the same mistake.”
“You saw something you shouldn’t have seen,” he repeated her words from earlier. “What was it?”
Juliette heaved out a sigh. “Not enough.”
“What does that mean?”
She’d come this far. The man had brought her to his house. He was the first person in years she’d dared to tell even this much. Might as well go for broke.
“My ex was a cop—is a cop. I actually met him when he pulled me over for a broken taillight. He let me go with a warning, but when I ran into him a few weeks later at a club, he asked me out.”
At the time, she’d thought it was some kind of fate, telling her to give Dylan a chance. Later, she’d learned that he’d run her plates, gotten her name and pulled her up on social media. Someone had tagged her at that club, and he’d gone there, specifically intending to bump into her. When he’d finally told her the truth on their honeymoon, she’d been flattered. Now she wondered if it had been a warning sign she’d been too infatuated to see.
“What’s his name?” Andre asked tightly.
“Dylan. Dylan Keane.”
“From Pennsylvania?”
“That’s right. But if you’re planning to dig up his file, don’t bother. He’s got a perfect record at the department. He actually got a commendation from the mayor right after we were married. No one will ever believe he’s dirty.”
“That’s what this is about?” Andre pressed. “That’s what you saw? Something to do with his work?”
“Yeah. Have you ever heard of Kent Manning?”
Andre’s eyes narrowed and his head tilted back, as though he was trying to remember where he’d heard the name.
“The businessman who was killed,” she prompted.
“That’s right. He was a multimillionaire, if I’m remembering correctly. They found him tossed in the lake in some small town in...”
She could tell the instant he realized. “Right. A small town in Pennsylvania. My small town in Pennsylvania.”
“But they caught the guy who killed him. He’s serving a life sentence, isn’t he?”
“He is. Chester Loews was Manning’s direct competitor. With Manning out of the picture, Loews’s company was poised to become the biggest logging supplier in the state.”
“All right. That’s a logical motive for murder. What does all of this have to do with your husband?”
“Ex-husband.”
“Sorry.” Andre gave her a half smile that made a dimple pop in his left cheek. “Believe me, I didn’t forget that part.”
Juliette swallowed, her mouth dry, and wondered what the heck that meant. Was it because he was interested in her?
Get it together, she reminded herself. “Anyway,” she continued, hoping she wasn’t flushed beet red, “what I overheard was my husband meeting with Boyd Harkin. He was Manning’s second-in-command, and when Manning was murdered, Harkin took over the company. He was originally a suspect, too, but the evidence against Loews was so overwhelming, it was a slam dunk. Case closed.”
“But you think Harkin actually killed Manning?” Andre guessed. “You think Loews was framed?”
“I think they were working together and only Loews got caught.”
Andre frowned. “If that’s the case, then why wouldn’t Loews turn on Harkin? Share the prison sentence?”
“I don’t know.”
“Okay.” He was clearly trying hard to be patient. “Why do you think they were working together?”
“My ex-husband and his partner were working the Manning murder case, and I saw Harkin hand my ex-husband a bag.” She’d come home early, unexpected, from her studio because she’d been sick. Harkin had been standing in her kitchen, a big hulk of a man who looked unnatural in a business suit. He’d handed over a brown paper bag, as though he was playing a part in a movie. “Dylan told Harkin he’d keep him out of it, but there was nothing he could do for Loews now.”
“Those were his exact words?” Andre asked.
“Yeah. I thought Dylan was getting the bag to make sure any evidence against Harkin found during the murder investigation would disappear.”
From the way Andre was nodding, he agreed. “And you think that bag contained a payoff?”
“I know it did. I found it later, stashed up in our closet. Dylan thought I didn’t know he hid things there, but I’d seen him do it before.”
“You’d seen him take money before?”
“No.” She gave a sad smile, because not all of her memories of Dylan were bad. She’d loved him once, enough to marry him. “Presents he’d bought me.”
Andre nodded, understanding on his face. “So, what made you run? Did Dylan know you’d spotted him and Harkin?”
“No. They were so busy talking, they never heard me come in.”
“Did he notice the money was moved? What?”
“No. Worse.”
“You confronted him.”
It wasn’t a question, but Juliette answered anyway. “Yes. At first I was sure Dylan would turn him in, but every few days I’d check, and the money was still there. So finally I asked him. I thought for sure he’d tell me there was an undercover operation happening, that they were going to arrest Harkin any day now.”
The memory burst forward in her mind, the moment she’d replayed so many times in the past three years. At first, she’d wished she could take it back, that she’d never seen Dylan accept the money, that she could just stay ignorant. Then, she’d wished to take back different moments, like the instant she’d said yes to his marriage proposal, practically before he could get the question out. Even the more hesitant yes when he’d first asked her out.
“He came home late because he’d been working a big case, but all excited about some cabin one of his buddies was going to lend him for the weekend. He wanted us to go away, just the two of us. Then I told him what I’d seen, and I knew the second I did it that our marriage was over.”
Sadness and pity and some other emotion she couldn’t quite pinpoint flashed across Andre’s face, and she got back to what mattered now. “He told me I needed to forget I’d ever heard that conversation.”
A tremor went through her, recalling the fury in Dylan’s voice, the hard glint she’d never seen before in his eyes. “He said if I ever told anyone, I was signing my own death warrant.”
* * *
ANDRE FOUGHT HARD to keep his expression neutral, not to let Juliette see how badly he wanted to smash her ex’s face in with his fist right now. He was pretty sure he was failing miserably.
She gave him a shaky smile. “This is why I was trying to run. I can’t have my name connected to any kind of investigation or he’ll find me.”
“You do know there’s not some kind of law enforcement bulletin that goes out with everyone’s active cases, right?” Andre joked.
“Yeah, well, when the hostage situation hits the news—if it hasn’t already—he’ll know I’m here. The first thing he’ll do is contact the FBI.”
“I doubt it. That’d be pretty suspicious.”
She snorted. It should have been ugly, but somehow it was cute. “Trust me, he’ll come up with a story everyone will believe. He’s done it before.”
“What do you mean?” Andre asked, remembering her comment that she’d tried to get help in the past, and no one had believed her. “You tried to report him, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.” She sighed and sank back into the chair, her head dropping back and her hands going limp at her sides.
It would be easy to jump up and snatch the gun off her lap now, but he didn’t. He just waited for her to start talking.
“Stupidly, I went to my local department, where he worked.”
“That’s not stupid. It’s logical,” Andre said, even though she probably should have gone to the FBI.
“Maybe it would have made a difference if I’d done it that night, instead of waiting to see if I’d misunderstood. But by the time I finally got the courage to turn him in, he’d already set the groundwork. They were expecting me. He’d told the chief that I’d...” She flushed, her voice getting quieter as she finished, “That I’d had a miscarriage and was suffering from severe depression.”
“Did you?” Andre asked quietly, not even realizing that he’d reached out to take her hand until she lifted her head and looked at it, perplexed.
But she didn’t pull hers away. She just shook her head and continued, “No. But he said the doctor had put me on medication and I was having delusions that everyone was out to get me.”
“And they bought it?” Andre asked with disbelief. “Even when you told them specifics about the money?”
“I never got that far. I tried to talk about Dylan meeting with Harkin, but they just patted me on my head and sent me home. The chief literally patted my head, as if I was a child. And when I got home that night...” She trailed off, as a shiver visibly went through her. “Anyway, that was when I knew I had to run. And I’ve been running ever since.”
“Three years,” Andre said, doing the math from the time he remembered seeing Manning’s death in the news.
“Yeah. Twice before, he’s caught up to me, but I managed to keep running, start over yet again. I thought this time I’d finally gotten away. I should have known better. I’m never going to be free of this.”
“Everything is different now,” Andre promised her.
“How?”
“This time, you’ve got help.” Andre squeezed her hand. “We’re going to nail him to the wall for this.”
He could see hope spark in her eyes, but just as quickly, she seemed to push it down. She carefully pulled her hand free and twisted it nervously in her lap. “How? All we have is the word of two criminals who don’t even know who hired them. And me. A woman using an assumed name who’s probably got a warrant out for her arrest now, too.”
Andre’s mind warred with what to ask next—how she’d managed to get that gun off Nadia in order to earn that possible warrant or what her real name was. He should ask about the gun, since knowing her ex’s name meant he could track hers down. But somehow, the question that came out of his mouth was, “What’s your real name? It’s Mya, isn’t it?”
Her nose crinkled. “Technically, yeah. But Juliette’s my middle name. I’ve gone by Juliette most of my life.”
“Kind of a strange choice for a fake name, then,” Andre commented.
“Yeah, probably, but I’m sure Dylan expected me to use Mya and a different last name.” He must have looked confused, because she added, “He called me Mya. He was the only one who did when we met, and we were only married for a year, but over the time we knew each other, my social circle just kept shrinking, and somehow I ended up in his. So by the end, no one called me Juliette anymore.”
“Controlling,” Andre muttered.
“It’s not what you think. He wasn’t cruel or abusive or anything, just...” She seemed to search for the right word, finally settling on manipulative.
Andre thought about arguing, because her relationship with her husband sure sounded abusive—maybe not physically but definitely psychologically. But the truth was, no matter the attraction he’d felt from the second he’d met her or how he wanted to help her now, her relationship with her ex wasn’t any of his business. So instead he just said, “You wanted to reclaim the name for yourself.”
“Exactly. I wasn’t Mya Moreau anymore or Mya Keane. I was Juliette Lawson. Lawson was my grandma’s maiden name.” She fidgeted. “I got some fake documents, just enough to get me by—a driver’s license and a social security number. I knew how from hearing Dylan talk about some of his cases. Anyway, my grandma and I were close when I was little, back in England. She was my rock, so that’s why I wanted to use her name. It wasn’t until after she died that my parents sent me away to boarding school here in the US.”
He made a face.
“They weren’t bad people. They just didn’t know what to do with a kid. The boarding school was them trying to provide for me in the best way they could.” She shrugged. “I always suspected it was because of my grandma that they didn’t do it sooner. I know I should have picked a totally random name, but I didn’t think...” She flushed and trailed off.
Still, he could guess what she was going to say. She didn’t think her husband paid enough attention to what she wanted or who she was to know her grandmother’s maiden name. But he was a cop; presumably, he knew how to chase a trail.
“None of that matters now,” Andre said. “What matters is we figure out how to turn the tables on him.” He tried to keep his tone even, but he could hear the aggression in his voice when he said, “It’s time for Dylan to be the one jumping at shadows.”
She stared back at him, shadows beneath her eyes and a weary slump to her shoulders. “How are we going to do that?”
“It’s time to call in reinforcements.”
Chapter Five (#u3b908ad4-ed28-507c-bead-817cbbd73eec)
These were some reinforcements.
Juliette actually had to work to keep her jaw from dropping as Andre opened the door and ushered in two men who couldn’t look more different than him. He introduced them as his brothers.
“We’re not blood related,” Cole Walker, Andre’s older brother, said.
Clearly, he’d misunderstood her gaping. Thank goodness. She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but two men equally as attractive as Andre hadn’t been it.
Cole had about two inches on Andre, and with his pale skin, light blue eyes and reddish-blond hair, they were total opposites. Throw in Marcos Costa, the youngest brother, with his jet black hair and piercing bluish hazel eyes, and no one would ever pick any of them as brothers. And yet they acted more like family than anyone who shared blood with her.
And, as she’d learned in the past two minutes, they all worked in law enforcement. Andre, in the FBI; Cole, a police detective just like her ex-husband; and Marcos, a DEA agent.
Women probably saw them together at family outings and wanted to suggest a Hot Men of Law Enforcement calendar. Still, as attractive as his brothers were, it was just Andre who made her pulse jump whenever she stared at him.
Which made no sense, because they barely knew each other. Besides, she should have learned her lesson when it came to instant attraction.
“—not quite what we were expecting,” Marcos said, humor in his voice, and Juliette realized that not only had she not been paying attention, but he’d been talking to her.
“Uh, sorry,” she mumbled.
“Juliette had a long day,” Andre said, earning inscrutable glances from his brothers.
Clearly, they both wondered why he was risking his career to help her. But the family loyalty ran deep, and they walked into Andre’s living room without a word, plopping onto the chairs on either side of the couch.
“What weren’t you expecting?” Juliette asked, trying to catch up.
“You,” Marcos responded with a dimpled grin as he flung his arms over the back of the chair and got comfortable.
“Knock it off,” Andre said.
Although Juliette wasn’t quite sure what he meant, she could tell Marcos was trying not to laugh. Cole was giving him a brotherly warning look, but underneath it, he seemed amused, too.
She had the distinct feeling that she was either the butt of a joke she didn’t understand, or Andre’s brothers thought something more scandalous was happening between her and Andre than a simple felony. Abducting a federal agent at gunpoint was surely a felony, she thought, then tried not to dwell on it.
Andre sat on the couch, and since it was the only seating left, Juliette joined him there, sticking close to the opposite side. No need to tempt herself even further by getting within touching distance of Andre. But nerves still shot through her at his nearness.
She scooted even closer to the far side, shifting so the armrest would hide her weapon. She’d kept her arm strategically placed over the bulging pocket of her cardigan since Andre’s brothers had arrived, but she was pretty sure neither of them had been fooled.
“So, what’s the plan?” Cole asked. “Get us up to speed here.”
When Andre explained the last few hours—glossing over her armed abduction—Cole seemed considerably less amused.
She fidgeted, not liking the idea of Cole and Marcos thinking poorly of her. Their opinions shouldn’t matter, but it was obvious how close they were to Andre, and already his opinion of her had become very important.
The three men were silent for a long minute, until Marcos burst out, “What a bastard.”
It took her a minute to realize he was talking about her ex-husband. A tentative smile bloomed.
“We start there,” Cole said, nodding at Marcos as though he was agreeing with his brother’s assessment.
Juliette’s shoulders slumped and she hadn’t realized until that moment how tense she’d felt through Andre’s explanation. Although he’d painted it as though her word was all he needed, she’d had no idea what reaction to expect from Cole and Marcos.
Even her own parents hadn’t just blindly believed her when she’d tried to ask them for advice. They’d insisted she must have misunderstood what was happening. Then, they’d gone back to their own lives in England and hadn’t bothered to check back in with her. She wondered what they thought now, if they’d heard about her in the news during the three years since she’d disappeared, and tried to push down the guilt.
“Start where exactly?” Juliette asked. “I wish I did, but I don’t have any proof of the payoff.”
“Well, technically, you do. Your eyewitness testimony,” Cole said. “But that’s not actually what I meant. I think we should investigate this attempt on your life. These cons took a payment for it, right?”
Andre nodded.
“So, there’s a trail. We just need to find it.”
“How?” Marcos asked. “We don’t exactly have the legal authority to go for a warrant. This isn’t our case. But I’m sure the Bureau will be doing that. What about Scott? Can he help?”
“I want to give him plausible deniability here,” Andre replied. “He doesn’t know Juliette came home with me. Right now, the FBI is searching for her. I don’t want him to need to lie for me. Besides, HRT won’t be handling the criminal investigation. That’ll get handed off to the Washington Field Office.”
“So, ask the WFO agents,” Marcos suggested. “They’ll share, won’t they?”
“If they can find the money trail,” Cole said. “But if these criminals don’t even know who paid them, I’m betting it’s pretty hidden. I know someone who can help.”
“Shaye?” Marcos guessed, that same smile flickering on the corners of his lips that had been there when he’d spotted her in Andre’s entryway.
“Yes, Shaye,” Cole replied.
“You sure this isn’t an excuse to see her again?” Marcos teased.
“Whether it is or not,” Andre jumped in, “Cole is right.” He looked at Juliette. “Shaye Mallory is some kind of computer forensics genius who used to work for Cole’s department. If anyone can find a trail, it’s her. Ask her,” he told Cole. “But make sure she’s careful. I don’t want to spread it around why we’re digging.”
“Not a problem,” he said, sitting a little straighter.
Even Juliette could tell he had a crush on this woman. The only question was why Shaye hadn’t jumped at the chance to go out with him. She glanced between the brothers. The same was true of all three of them. What if Andre had a girlfriend? Maybe she’d misread his intent to ask her out when he’d saved her life in the woods this morning.
Wow, had it really been less than twenty-four hours since she’d been on her way to work, thinking everything was going to be normal today? Exhaustion hit so hard she couldn’t stop herself from sinking into the cushions.
“I think that’s our cue,” Cole said.
“You take the big hardship and talk to Shaye,” Marcos teased Cole, “and I’ll start digging into the Manning murder, see if I can get any traction there.”
“And I’ll check into Dylan Keane,” Andre said, a determined edge to his voice.
It wasn’t until Andre stood to walk his brothers to the door that Juliette realized they were leaving because of her. She tried to sit upright again, get focused, but the stress of the day had finally caught up to her, and her body didn’t want to obey.
“Thank you,” she called after them.
Then Andre was back, scooping her off the couch as if she weighed nothing.
She squeaked—actually squeaked—with surprise and looped her arms around his neck for stability. He smelled vaguely of the woods he’d been running through this morning. On him, the scent of pine managed to be an aphrodisiac. Her voice came out breathy when she asked, “What are you doing?”
“Taking you to bed.”
Suddenly, she wasn’t tired at all. Her body came alive, sensitive to every inch of his arms looped under her back and knees, the solid warmth of his chest pressed against her side. She looked up to discover his face was much closer than she’d expected. If she just tilted her head back and snuggled closer, she could trace her lips over the adorable cleft in his chin, over the tiny dots of scruff just starting to come in, to his mouth.
Her throat went dry at the thought, and her pulse picked up until surely he could feel it. When his gaze met hers, his pupils instantly dilated.
She stared up at him, anxious for him to dip his head and kiss her but not wanting to break the anticipation. She let her gaze slide down to his lips and then back up to his eyes, so there was no mistaking what she wanted.
Some logical part of her was screaming a warning about the last time she’d taken a chance on a man in law enforcement, but logic was not winning against the desire in Andre’s eyes. She could feel the pace of his breathing change beneath her, and his fingers curled into her arm and her leg where he held her. His head lowered, infinitesimally slowly.
Just when she was gripping his shirt to pull herself toward him, he straightened and picked up his pace, striding into a room and dropping her on the center of the bed.
Surprise made her laugh, then nerves kicked in. Kissing Andre was one thing, but she wasn’t sure she was ready for anything more.
But he was already backing out of the room. “You should get some sleep,” he said, then disappeared through the doorway, leaving Juliette alone.
* * *
ANDRE SWORE UNDER his breath as he paced back and forth in the kitchen, forcing himself to stay away from the guest bedroom where he’d just deposited Juliette. He didn’t know what had happened. Despite his attraction to her, his intent had been innocent when he’d picked her up. She was obviously exhausted. He’d planned to let her get some rest.
Then she’d stared up at him as if she wanted to devour him. The memory of it heated him until he opened his freezer and stood in front of it to cool down.
What was it about this woman?
Yes, she was gorgeous, but he knew plenty of beautiful women. And yes, he had a definite thing for a damsel in distress, but despite the challenges Juliette had obviously faced, she wasn’t exactly screaming for someone to save her. The woman had stolen a gun off a federal agent, for crying out loud.
He squinted over at the couch where she’d been sitting and realized he hadn’t imagined it. When he’d lifted her, the gun had dropped unnoticed out of her pocket.
Andre slammed the freezer shut, then walked over and picked it up. He went to empty the bullets and realized there were none. A startled laugh burst forth. Juliette had taken him hostage with an unloaded weapon.
He knew it had been loaded when she’d swiped it off Nadia at Quantico, which meant she’d purposely emptied it before holding it on him. He wasn’t sure if that made the whole situation better or worse, but he took the gun into his room and locked it up.
Then he sank down on the edge of the bed, hearing Juliette toss and turn on the other side of the wall. He should have been polite and offered her a change of clothes to sleep in, a towel and some toiletries to take a shower. But he’d been too desperate to get out of there before he acted on their mutual attraction.
It was bad enough that he’d let her into his house and promised to help her evade the law. He didn’t need to jump into bed with her, too. Because if he did, he’d get way too entangled. And no matter how much he might want to, he was still thinking logically enough to know it was a bad idea.
There wasn’t a good ending here. Even if he helped Juliette prove her ex-husband was guilty, there was still the matter of her stealing Nadia’s weapon and him hiding her from the FBI. If he got involved with Juliette, there’d be even more hell to pay.
As if on cue, his phone rang and the readout said it was Scott.
Andre didn’t have to pick up to know why Scott was calling him back. Somehow, he’d figured out where Juliette had gone.
“I can explain,” he answered the phone.
“Well, that’s good, because Bobby said he thought he saw you on the freeway with this Juliette woman in your passenger seat.”
Bobby was one of their friends on HRT, a monster of a guy who still managed to beat most of the team running the Yellow Brick Road at Quantico.
“I said that couldn’t possibly be true,” Scott continued, “because Juliette—or should I call her Mya?—was on the run, and the FBI was searching for her!”
“There’s more to the story than you think.”
“Well, there better be, because I don’t think the FBI is going to appreciate one of their own agents hiding a fugitive.”
“She was the victim,” Andre reminded him.
“Until she took a weapon off a federal agent,” Scott shot back.
Keeping her other illegal action under wraps, Andre said, “She emptied the bullets. You’ll probably find them in the parking lot.”
“Great. She still stole the gun. What’s going on?”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you when you called before, but she’s in trouble, okay?”
“So you gave her a lift off FBI property and hid her when you found out she’d snatched Nadia’s weapon?”
“Not exactly. I’m just trying to help her. Her ex-husband is the cop who hired those goons to kill her.”
There was a beat of silence, then Scott asked, “Can she prove it?”
“If she could prove it, do you think she’d be running?”
“Touché. Well, don’t you think she’s better off in FBI custody, where we can keep her safe?”
“I’m keeping her safe.”
Scott swore. “This isn’t exactly a career-advancing move you’re making here.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“I mean, you could be in serious trouble. If she’s in danger, the FBI will help her, but she can’t just take an agent’s weapon.”
“Yeah, I got it,” Andre snapped.
“I’m just trying to help you,” Scott said softly. “What do you really know about this woman? Don’t mess up your career for her.”
Scott’s argument was perfectly logical. Andre knew he was right. But still... “I can’t walk away from her. She’s totally alone, and she’s got a cop gunning for her.”
Although Andre had never found himself in her particular predicament, he did know exactly what it was like to be all alone in the world, and to feel as if the people who were supposed to help you had turned their backs. He’d gotten lucky, moving into the foster home with Cole and Marcos when he was nine. Before that, after his family had died, was a time he didn’t want to think about too much.
The abuse had been sporadic. He’d think everything was fine, and then out of the blue, his foster father would knock him down the stairs. He’d tried to get help, but the person he’d told hadn’t believed him, and he’d been too young to realize he should try again. Instead, he’d learned to be invisible.
Four years after he’d been put in that house, social services had gotten suspicious. They’d taken all the kids away, and Andre had been moved somewhere else. He’d expected the same thing, but instead, that very first day, Cole had somehow known what he’d been through. He’d told Andre that things would be different now, because he had a big brother to watch out for him.
The memories faded as Andre realized Scott had been saying something. “Sorry. What?”
There was an audible sigh on the other end of the line. “What can I do?”
“I was trying to keep you out of it. I don’t want to mess you up here.”
“Yeah, well, I should have realized earlier you avoided my question about whether you’d seen Juliette leave Quantico. I’m in it now. We’re partners. I’ve got your back.”
Andre smiled, knowing how lucky he’d been to have had Scott assigned as his partner. He’d gotten a whole new brother that day. “Thanks, man.”
“Just try not to get us both kicked off the team for this, okay?”
Scott’s tone was light, but Andre knew it was no joke. “We need to find the proof to connect her ex to the attempt on her life. And tomorrow, when I come in, I’ll bring Nadia’s weapon. I’ll say I found it in the parking lot. It will be kind of true.”
“You’re coming in tomorrow?” Scott asked. “What about Juliette?” He paused. “Or do I call her Mya?”
“Juliette.” Andre frowned. “Good point. I shouldn’t leave her by herself. I doubt Keane could track her to my place, but I don’t want to take any chances.”
“Keane? That’s his name?”
“Yeah. Dylan Keane. He’s a cop out of Pennsylvania. She saw him take a payoff connected to the murder of Kent Manning.”
Scott swore. “Okay, tomorrow I’ll go see my fiancée and my sister at WFO, then use it as an excuse to drop in on the case agents, try to whisper that name in their ears and see what pops.”
“I’m going to see what I can find from here.”
“Good luck. And, Andre?”
“Yeah?”
“Try not to fall for this woman.”
Too late. Instead of blurting his instant reaction, Andre replied, “I’ll do my best. Thanks for the help.”
Then he opened up his laptop. “All right, Dylan Keane. Time to dig up your skeletons.”
Chapter Six (#u3b908ad4-ed28-507c-bead-817cbbd73eec)
A soft thud woke Juliette from a deep sleep. She blinked, her heart racing, as she tried to get her bearings. She was lying under a soft blue coverlet in an unfamiliar room. For a minute, she panicked, until sleep cleared and she remembered. She was at Andre’s house.
Everything was fine, she reminded herself. She tried to calm her pulse, which was still erratic, as if it knew something her brain didn’t. Then she heard it again: another noise, this time a thump. Like someone was in the house. Someone besides Andre, whom she’d heard go into the bedroom, away from the noise, hours ago.
Judging by the darkness of the room, even with the shades partially open, it was the middle of the night. The sort of time someone would try to break in if they wanted to snatch her away while a federal agent slept in the next room.
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Elizabeth Heiter
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Take the shot…or take a chance?FBI Sniper Andre Diaz saved Juliette Lawson from a deadly hostage situation. But only hours later, he receives the surprise of his life when she takes him hostage in order to escape Quantico. Now the federal agent knows just how desperate Juliette is to stay hidden from her dangerous cop ex-husband.Putting her trust in another law enforcement officer is difficult. Yet Juliette senses Andre is definitely one of the good guys. Perhaps he truly can protect her from the secrets she’s been running from—unless her deadly past catches up with them both first.