A Loaded Question

by Danica Winters

  She chuckled at his lame attempt at a joke. As flat as it fell, she appreciated the fact that when he must have noticed her discomfort, he had gone out of his way to console her in the only way he could. “No matter what anyone says, Hunt, you are a good dude.”

  Hunt put his hand to his chest and gave her a look of surprise. “What do you mean? Do people really think I’m not a good guy? What the hell, man?”

  “Last time I checked, I’m not a man. Not with a set of girls like—” She motioned toward her chest.

  “Whoa,” he said, stopping her midsentence. “I didn’t mean man to be pejorative.”

  She laughed, the sound throaty. “Breaking out the big words, you must have known you screwed up right there.”

  He put his hands up in surrender. “Two rules that can’t be broken in our world... No one disrespects you, and—”

  “Don’t leave your service arm in the bathroom. Plain and simple.” She finished his sentence, chuckling.

  “One freaking time,” Hunt scoffed. “I had the flu. I learned my lesson. One you will never let me forget.”

  She was playing with him, but she could still make out the unmistakable edge of butt-hurt in his tone. “If you would have done that back at the farm, you would have been out on your ass. You and I both know that you are lucky that I was the one to come across it. If it would have been Agent Raft, you would have been looking for another job—sans gun—within the Bu.”

  “Blah, blah...” he said, waving her off. “I know. I owe you one.” He reached down and took hold of the door handle, moving to get out of the car. “On that note, I’m not staying here to take any more of your crap. Man or woman, if I wanted my ass kicked, I would stay home.”

  “How your girlfriend puts up with you, I will never know,” she teased.

  He opened the door and stepped out, but not before sticking his head back in so he could get the last word. “That may be a mystery, but why you are still single is as clear as an effing bell.” He gave her a wilting smile and slammed the door shut before she could get in the final strike.

  Dammit. She had started with a lunge and he’d parried, and his riposte was only fair play. She couldn’t let his sharp swordlike words plunge too deep, and yet she could still very much feel their mark.

  There was no doubt that she needed to be alone. The last man she had dated had been more than three years ago after they had met on a dating app. It had devolved into sexually explicit text messages that she should have known better than to send, text messages that later had come back to haunt her when her private phone records had been brought into a court case. Her texts had cost her the case, as they called into question her credibility.

  She’d never been more hurt or angry in all of her life than she had been in the moment when her then boyfriend had taken the stand and told the world all about her sexual preferences. She couldn’t blame him for speaking the truth, he’d been under oath and the defense attorney had been playing sleazeball, but she’d never make the mistake of trusting another human being for as long as she lived—not even Hunt was free from her stalemate.

  After a stern talking-to and a reprimand that had cost her a raise and a move up in the ranks, she had found herself working in the FBI’s Missoula field office. In all reality, it was a far better result than she had expected at the time. Luckily, her superior officer had taken pity on her and understood that life and love had a way of cutting the best out at the knees.

  After what was the most embarrassing moment of her life, she had vowed never to love again.

  Love meant weakness. Weakness meant pain. Pain meant failure. And she couldn’t fail, dammit.

  There was a popping sound outside her car. The sound was distinct, although it was muffled by her windows. There was only one thing that could make that noise—a rifle.

  She turned around in her seat only to see the boy who had been standing behind the van drop to the ground. Had he been hit?

  Instinctively, she reached to her sidearm, unholstering it as she hurried out of her car. She moved behind her door as she tried to distinguish which direction the gunfire had come from. The dark-haired man dropped down, covering the boy with his own body as two more rounds tore through the air. There was a ping as the rounds struck the metal siding of the van.

  What in the hell was going on? Who was shooting? Who were they shooting at?

  She looked toward the west, in the direction of the source of the sound. From where she was located, she spotted the shimmer of a distant scope and a black rifle muzzle just inside a window at the top floor of the apartment building two blocks from them. There was a muzzle flash, but she barely heard the rip of the bullet as it tore through the air and struck the front of the van.

  Kate tucked in behind the body of her car, out of the line of sight from what she assumed was the shooter.

  “Stay down!” the man atop the boy yelled at her.

  Like she needed a reminder that she didn’t want some person taking potshots at her.

  Then again, if the man lying in the middle of the road thought that she needed his help, he mustn’t have had a clue who she was.

  He wasn’t her enemy.

  And yet that didn’t guarantee he played for the same side, the side of honor.

  Good Samaritan or not, he was involved in something that was causing gunfire to rain down upon them. In her entire career, she’d been in only three active shooter scenarios. None of the shooters in those cases had made it out alive.

  She grabbed her handset and radioed in to the local dispatcher. She identified herself, then continued. “We have an active shooter, possible mass shooting in progress on the 200 block of Pine. Shooter is in the Sol building 400 block of Pine, fifth floor. Requesting all available resources.”

  The dispatcher cleared her request. There was the crackle and fade in the background as the dispatcher went to work sending the information about the shooting out to all the applicable channels.

  She would have all the help she needed in less than a few minutes, but a lot could happen while she waited.

  Five rounds pinged through the air and struck the van. She braced for potential impact. Moving so she remained under cover, she glanced at the van’s windshield. It had the unmistakable spiderwebbed marks where the shooter’s rounds had struck just where a driver’s head would have been, but none of them had pierced through. Bulletproof glass. An armored van.

  There was a sinking feeling in her gut that told her she was dealing with what people in her line of work called the “icemen.” She couldn’t be one hundred percent sure, but with a military-grade van, intel equipment and two ghosts...it seemed highly likely that she had just come in contact with corporate espionage.

  But what in the hell would intellectual spies be doing in the middle of Montana, where on the most exciting days a bear wandered into the center of the city?

  What did I walk into?

  There was the piercing wail of police sirens.

  If they were smart, whoever was behind the attack was going to be long gone before they arrived.

  The window in which she had first spotted the shooter now stood empty, as if only moments before there hadn’t been a sniper posted inside, bearing down on her.

  She sank to her haunches, taking a moment to collect herself. Her hands were shaking and the realization both surprised and disappointed her.

  There had been far more terrifying moments at Quantico, live firing drills and mental warfare, and she’d never reacted like this. Why here? Why now?

  Had living in this relatively peaceful city—until this very moment, that was—made her lose her edge?

  No one could see her like this.

  She bit the inside of her cheek, hard. The taste of coppery blood filled her mouth and pulled her back to reality. This was nothing more than another day in the office. This was nothing to get upset over.
Emotions were killers.

  Focus.

  The man she had first seen get out of the van moved off the boy, who appeared to be okay, just shaken. She guessed he’d dropped at the first sound of the gun or been so startled he’d lost his balance. The man raised his SIG Sauer, and pointing in the direction of the shooter, he helped the boy to safety behind the van, then made his way over toward her.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  She slipped her service arm back into the holster, though as she did, she wasn’t exactly sure whether to do so was in her best interest or not. The shooter could come at them from another direction at any moment. And yet the foreboding that had been filling her had subsided.

  Though she didn’t believe in intuition when it came to her job, there were times when she still adhered to the magic of the feeling.

  The dark-haired man extended his hand, an unspoken offer to help her to her feet. She’d always loved a chivalrous man; true gentlemen might have been one of her greatest weaknesses.

  Slipping her hand into his, she let him help her up. “I don’t see any blood,” he said, giving her an appraising, thoughtful glance.

  Though she shouldn’t have been, she was slightly disappointed in his seeming lack of interest in her ample assets.

  She’d always been proud of her décolletage, and yet he was a man who didn’t seem to really care.

  This iceman was even more cold than the work she presumed he did.

  A gentleman who was mysterious, chivalrous and seemingly indifferent to her charms.

  Crap.

  This kind of wispy, dry ice always had a way of seeping through her armor and straight into her heart. When something that cold met her heart, it would end up only shattered into a million pieces.

  Her hand was warm and she realized that she was still holding his as she leaned back against her car. She pulled away.

  For the first time in her life, she wished for a firefight. Unlike the man who helped her, snipers presented less danger.

  Chapter Four

  “I’m Troy,” he said, looking at the beautiful woman who had the look of a frightened deer in her eyes.

  As soon as his name flew past his lips, the look of fear left her face. “Troy,” she said, clipped. “Are you active?”

  He tried to control his autonomic response at her overly prying question. He grunted unintelligibly in response, giving her nothing.

  Who in the hell was this woman? Using his peripheral vision, in hopes of not giving himself and his inspection away, he looked her over. She was brunette and wearing the dark suit of a professional, but pinned to her lapel was an American flag, and a lanyard was tucked under her shirt, her name badge and tin star hidden from view, but not hidden from those like him who were accustomed to looking for such things.

  The FBI really needed to work on their disguises. Or perhaps some of their power lay in the fact that they hid just under the average person’s radar. Thanks to his outlier status, and the knowledge that came with it, this lifted veil spoke of her underlying authority. Maybe that was exactly what the Bureau wanted.

  He’d always had a sense of antagonism when it came to the BuCrew and their seeming ambivalence to those they deemed “less than,” especially since, in the few times he’d worked with their teams, he had found himself labeled as one within that camp.

  She gave him a disarming smile, the practiced smile of someone in control.

  His hackles rose slightly, but perhaps it was just residual emotions from the firefight. At least he hoped so; he’d never been the kind of man who had been put off by a woman in control—in fact, he always found it a bit of a turn-on. His girlfriend before Tiff had been a CEO for a small manufacturing firm in San Francisco, and was nothing but power...except in the bedroom. There, she was all his.

  He tried to ignore the way the woman’s jacket pulled tight as she crossed her arms over her chest. If he had to guess, she was a little like his ex—the perfect combination between self-confidence and power mixed with sensuality and acquiescence. Then again, passion and power could have a beautiful place when it came to bedroom activities as well.

  His body stirred to life and he looked away and toward the direction where the shooter had been posted. What jerk thought about tits when Mike was sitting in the van and a teenager was leaning shell-shocked on the vehicle?

  Work needed his attention. More accurately, they needed to get the hell out of Dodge before their bosses caught wind of what had happened. Not that they would be the first intel officers to find themselves on the wrong end of a set of handcuffs.

  Unlike the Bu woman, he didn’t have a readily accessible get-out-of-jail-free card; his took a few more phone calls.

  When it came to trouble in the form of violence and women, avoidance was best.

  He turned his back to the woman, and she let out a little squeak as he walked to the boy. Mike was with him, double-checking to make sure he was unscathed.

  “What? What happened?” the boy stammered, his eyes wide. His pants were wet, a common result of this type of event, and a sense of pity filled Troy.

  This was one day that was going to stick with this kid forever. He’d probably wake up sweating in the night. Question his role in the accident and the precursors to the shooting. He would blame himself.

  Troy would have to make an effort to check on the kid’s welfare for the next few years. An event like this often had two unexpected consequences for a kid: moving forward and using the violence to his benefit, or tarnishing his trust in humanity and imbuing the boy with a sense of fear so great that it would lead to further violence or death. He had to hope that, for the kid’s sake, he would find himself coming down with a savior complex.

  “It’s going to be okay...” He paused, hoping the kid would give him his name.

  “John.”

  Good—he was off to a good start in getting the boy calmed down.

  There were footsteps behind him as the FBI woman came over. “John, it’s great to meet you. I’m Kate Scot. I’m an agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I’m here to let you know that everything is going to be okay.”

  She was about as subtle as a fist to the face. And people judged him for his line of work. He sighed, and she sent him a sideways glance.

  A police cruiser pulled up and onto the corner, three more in its wake, effectively closing down the intersection and boxing them in, trapping him. He resisted the urge to retreat into the shadows and disappear before there was no longer an option and he was incapacitated; these were the good guys. They were doing their jobs. He didn’t have to like it, just accept their actions for what they were—an attempt to keep the general public safe.

  Besides, they were good, but he was better. If he wanted out, he’d get out.

  No cage was strong enough to keep him.

  A string of LEOs rolled out of the car as the men and women flooded out from inside the federal building.

  “The shooter disappeared. We need to cordon off an area four blocks wide. Shut everything down,” Agent Scot ordered, taking control of the scene as she motioned for the crews to move out.

  There was a flurry of motion as the city police officers went into action.

  They could do as much as they wanted, but given the limited resources and the size of the city, the chances of getting their hands on the shooter were slim to none. At least, not right away. First, they needed to get their hands on witnesses, anyone who could have possibly seen the shooter coming or going from the building.

  The one thing they did have going for them was that Missoula was a city small enough for people to take note of each other. It wasn’t like New York, where the population was just a faceless audience in an individual’s life.

  The man who had initially been in the car with Agent Scot rushed over to her side. “You okay?” the man asked, giving her an evaluating glan
ce, one that made an odd and unwelcome wiggle of possessiveness move through him.

  What in the hell was wrong with him?

  There was a tap on his shoulder. Mike was standing behind him. “We need to get out of here. There are too many people sniffing around. If we don’t get out now, our entire mission is going to be compromised. You know Zoey will have our asses if we aren’t careful.”

  Zoey Martin, their boss at STEALTH, would have their asses regardless of what they did. That woman was hell on wheels, and yet they loved her all the more for her unflappability and take-no-crap attitude.

  Mike slipped back into the van and Troy moved to follow. As he opened the door of their van, a hand gripped his wrist from behind. Instinctually, he raised his elbow, readying himself to strike whoever dared to touch him.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Agent Scot asked.

  He lowered his elbow, gently twisting his wrist to break her grasp, but she held on only tighter. Yielding, he stopped. “I have a job to do.”

  “You can’t leave the scene without someone taking a statement. And what about the kid?” she asked, pointing in the direction of the boy who had started this fiasco.

  “Let him go. We will take care of our end of things, accident-wise. He is going to have one hell of a crappy day without adding our repair bill to his list of concerns. Call it a Christmas gift.”

  She chuckled, but the sound was dark and matched the world around them. “First, Christmas is six months away. Second, you can’t think that we are going to let you take this van. It is critical evidence in our investigation. You better get real comfortable while we unscrew this situation.”

  “I have a job to do. We have a job to do,” he said, motioning toward Mike, who was sitting back in the driver’s seat.

  “I don’t care if you are the president and are on your way to the Oval Office. Your van and both of you are staying here. The only question is whether it will be thanks to handcuffs or not.”

  Dammit.

  That jumped to handcuffs a hell of a lot faster than he had anticipated. It was too bad that her first reference to handcuffs involved a crime scene instead of a bedroom activity.