“What are you doing here?” I ask when he’s finally standing before me.
“Inside,” he says. He’s guarded, alert, and his shoulders are tense beneath his grey T-shirt. Behind him, through the door of his apartment block, I catch sight of a man standing just inside the door, watching us.
“Ace, you’re freaking me out.”
“Walk, Josie.”
He follows me back inside. As soon as the elevator doors close, I let him have it.
“What the hell is going on? Who was that man? And why were you in that apartment block?”
“I’m going to lose my job for this,” he replies.
“You don’t have a job!”
“Let’s get inside, Josie. I’ll explain everything then.”
We go to the living room. “Explain,” I say.
Ace doesn’t explain. Instead, he pulls a badge from his back pocket and hands it to me. I stare at the familiar crest. I’ve played an agent or two in my day. The seal is impossible not to recognize, nor is his name on the identity card beside it.
“FBI?” I whisper, my voice a croak. “Is this a joke?”
“No.” he takes the badge back. “I’m going to hold onto this seeing as I’m about to lose it.”
“You’re with the FBI?” It’s inconceivable.
“It’s a long story, but yes.”
“And you didn’t tell me.”
“I’m undercover, Josie. Not telling you is part of my job.”
“But, why? Your being undercover has nothing to do with me – with us.”
“My being undercover has everything to do with you.”
A searing white pain shoots through my skull. “Oh, God.”
Ace grabs my shoulders. “With you, Josie, not with us,” he tries to explain, but it’s too late. I yank out of his grasp.
“You needed me for a job, didn’t you?”
“No, that’s not what this is.”
“Bullshit! What has this got to do with me?”
“It’s complicated. For your own protection―”
“Don’t you dare!” I roar. “I deserve to know!”
“Calm down!”
I slap him.
His head ricochets to the right. “Dammit Josie, calm down!” he yells just as his phone starts to ring.
“Hartley, this isn’t a good time,” he snaps. The person on the other end speaks rapidly, and the blood drains from Ace’s face. “I’ve got her. Call it in, I want the full team ready to move.” He ends the call and looks at me with real fear on his face. “Josie, listen to me. I don’t have time to explain. You want to know why I’m here, why I’ve been watching you? It’s Alex. This is all about Alex.”
“Alex? Why on earth―”
“No time,” he reminds me. “But you can’t trust him, He’s dangerous, Josie. You said I used to be the good guy. I still am. Please, you have to trust me, and you have to trust me now.”
“Why?” I croak.
“Because he’s on his way up.”
19
I barely have time to register his words when I hear the knock on the door. My blood turns to ice. Ace lifts a finger to his lips, warning me to be silent. My phone is still in my hand. I raise it to find another text from Alex, right after the last. I’m coming over. It must have come through while I was on the phone to Ace. I hold the phone up, and Ace reads the text.
“Just stay calm,” he murmurs in my ear, “he’s probably read about our break up and wants to try to get you back. Act natural, but get rid of him as soon as you can.”
My heart is hammering in my chest, my saliva turned to acid.
“I’ll be right here, Josie.”
Another knock, louder this time. Ace slips into the kitchen and vanishes from sight. My feet are heavy as I walk toward the door.
“Hey.” Alex smiles when he sees me, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.
“Alex, what are you doing here?”
“I wanted to see you. I read about what happened.” I don’t ask whether he’s referring to me having sex with Ace, or our break up. “Didn’t you get my text?”
I shake my head. “It’s not really a good time. I’m packing, I have an early flight.”
“Chicago filming starting?” he asks fondly, reminding me that he knows my schedule as well as I do.
“Yes.”
“Can I come in? I won’t stay long.” There’s something different about his eyes. They’re glittering, manic. After spending two years with Alex, I feel as though I’m looking at a stranger.
“I’m sorry, Alex, it’s just not a good time.” I start to close the door, but he rams his foot forward, jamming it open. I gape down at his shoe and then arch my brow.
“Alex?”
His smile changes. “I really do need to come in. I’ve done some digging, and I’ve discovered the most interesting facts about your new boyfriend. I assume I’m the reason he’s been hanging around?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
His eyes search my face, find the fear imprinted there. “You’re a terrible actress.”
A moment passes between us, one in which we both come to a decision. I throw my weight against the door. At the same time, Alex shoves it open. His superior strength wins out, and it bangs painfully into my shoulder.
“What has he told you?” Alex hisses in my ear. “What does he know?” His hand bites into my arm, jerking me toward him.
“Get your hands off me!”
“What, you don’t like it rough?” he sneers. “You really had me fooled. All that time I held out for you, ever the gentleman, only for you to whore yourself to the next man to cross your path.”
“Don’t talk to me like that.”
“I’ll talk to you any way I damned well please. Now, you and I are going to sit down, and you’re going to tell me exactly how much that bastard knows.”
“And then what?”
His smile is pure malice, and a wave of nausea rises up in me. I try to shake him off with renewed energy, but he has me in a vice-grip. Desperate, terrified, I kick out at his shin. I’m barely able to appreciate the thud as my shoe connects, when he’s hit me, hard, across the face. My vision swims, and I taste blood on my lip.
“Let her go.” Ace’s voice is a calm fury. He’s standing in the kitchen doorway, his arm raised. The gun in his hand is trained on Alex, only an inch above my head. I feel Alex stiffen behind me. “Let her go,” Ace repeats, taking a few steps toward us.
“Who the hell are you?” Alex asks, shifting so that I’m squarely between him and the gun.
Ace pulls out his badge. “John Logan, FBI. Now let her go.”
“Not going to happen. Do you have any idea who I am? You’re a dead man.”
“Not yet, I’m not. And I know exactly who you are, you piece of shit. Now put the gun down and―”
Before Ace can finish speaking, Alex’s free arm moves behind me. Too late, I call out a warning, but he’s already pulled a gun. He presses it to my temple, the cold bite of steel nothing compared to the flare of terror in my chest. I let out a whimper.
“Drop it,” Ace growls, his face a mask of fury. He takes another step toward us. Alex’s only response is to twist the barrel more deeply into my skin.
“You first,” Alex says. Ace falters.
“Don’t!” I sob.
“Shut up!” Alex tells me. Then, glancing toward the door, he sidesteps, dragging me with him.
“You won’t get away,” Ace warns, keeping his voice level. “I have men stationed outside and at every exit.”
“Please, Alex,” I beg, “don’t do this.”
“I told you to shut up!”
He’s so focused on me that he misses the quick look that Ace darts toward the door. It’s still open, I realize. And the man that Ace spoke to on the phone – Hartley – knows Alex is here. If Ace told him to have the team ready to move, then that means…
I don’t have time to think it through. Ace moves, launching forwar
d as a gunshot rings out, so close to my ear, it’s deafening. The boom renders me temporarily deaf as Alex jerks behind me, his arm tight around my throat. I see the glint of steel as he levels the gun. It all happens so fast, and then I’m screaming, watching helplessly as Ace drops to his knees and stares down at his chest in disbelief as blood blooms through his T-shirt.
A third gunshot and Alex’s arm drops away. I lurch forward, falling to my knees beside Ace as men dressed in black pour into the room.
Ace is still conscious. I whip off my cardigan and press it to his chest to staunch the flow of blood. There’s so much, my jeans are already soaked through.
“Ace!” I’m sobbing. His eyes meet mine, filled with relief.
“You’re okay,” he murmurs.
“Shhh, don’t try to talk.”
An agent appears on Ace’s other side. He’s yelling orders, calling for an ambulance. Firm hands pull me up, away from Ace. I kick out at the agent, but he steers me away. I twist in his grasp, see Ace speaking to the agent beside him. The man raises his hand. We stop. I’m free. I skid back to Ace’s side. His smile is fading.
“Don’t you dare die on me,” I beg.
20
They let me ride in the ambulance, but I’m curled up in the far corner, staying out of the way while a team of paramedics works frantically to save Ace’s life. Ace is so pale, deathly pale, and I keep my eyes fixed on the rise and fall of his chest. The agent who allowed me to stay – Ben Hartley, I learn – is with me, grim-faced.
“I told him not to go over there,” he tells me. My heart pinches. If Ace hadn’t been there, I don’t know what Alex would’ve done, but I do know that Ace wouldn’t have been hurt. “I don’t need to tell you that this is confidential,” Hartley says. I nod, not trusting myself to speak. “There’s not much I can tell you, Miss Hudson, other than we’ve been investigating your ex-fiance for some time now. Let’s just say he didn’t make his money through corporate investments as he claims.”
Past tense. Alex is dead. He was shot twice at close range. I should feel bad about it, but all I can think of is that he died too slowly. He managed to get a shot off at Ace before the team brought him down.
“How did he make his money, then?” I ask, even though I’m not sure I want to know the answer. Hartley casts a quick glance at the frantic medics.
“Not now,” he murmurs, but I’m already distracted.
“Is he going to make it?” I whisper, gesturing at Ace.
“I’ve seen weaker men recover from worse.”
They take Ace straight into surgery. I wait in the visitor’s room, slumped in a straight-backed chair with my head in my hands. Black-clad strangers surround me, their collective concern palpable. They all know Ace so well – far better than I do, judging by the way they speak about him. I was so stupid. How did I not see that he was so much more than just a deadbeat wannabe actor?
“How long has Ace been an agent?” I ask the room at large. They all turn to look at me, seeming shocked to discover I’m there. A greying man with a scarred nose takes pity on me.
“Five years. He signed up right out of college and moved through the ranks faster than anyone else I know. It was just after his mother died.”
His mother? I pull my phone from my purse and start to Google. It takes me a while, but I eventually find an article which mentions her, only briefly. Collateral damage of a drug bust gone wrong. Jesus. No wonder Ace dropped out and followed a career that would see justice served.
At some point, Hartley comes to stand before me. I see his black boots, but I don’t look up.
“I’m going to need you to answer some questions, Miss Hudson.”
“Josie,” I say automatically.
“Josie,” he acquiesces.
I lift my head. “Can it wait?”
He sighs and evicts the agent sitting beside me from his seat.
“Alex ran a drug cartel under cover of one of his subsidiaries. As far as we can gather, he’s responsible for over a hundred million dollars’ worth of heroin hitting U.S. soil in the past two years alone.”
Drugs. Alex was dealing in drugs.
“How could I not know?” I spent two years with Alex, how could I have been so blind to his crimes? I rack my brain, trying to think of a single instance that might have clued me in, but I come up blank. Barring the frequent travel, and the “meetings”, which, admittedly, I never delved too deeply into, there was nothing out of the ordinary. No warning signs.
“He was a smart guy. Hell, it took us three years to build a case against him which might stick. And it gets worse. Over the past year, eight women have disappeared – prostitutes, runaways. Nobody paid much attention, until one of them managed to escape. The information she gave us led us to believe your husband was the abductor.”
My mind reels. “Alex wasn’t… he was never violent with me. Not once, in two years.”
The look he gives me is pure pity. “Until he was,” he says softly.
I blink back fresh tears. “Ace knew?”
“Yes. For what it’s worth, Miss Hudson, I didn’t want to bring you into this. I had no way of knowing whether you were involved in Mr. Masters’ illegal activities. Logan went off plan when he contacted you.”
“Why, though? Why contact me at all, why bring me into this mess?”
This time, the look he gives me is incredulous. “You really don’t know the answer to that?”
“No, Detective, I really don’t know the answer to that.”
“Logan didn’t want you tied up in this. He was concerned for your safety, especially when we discovered the missing women. He broke protocol when he made contact with you, to get you away from a man who is a suspected murderer. And he risked his badge to do it.”
Ace survives the surgery, but he’s not out of the woods, not by a long shot. He’s being monitored around the clock. No visitors are permitted, save for immediate family, and as far as I know, his father is still trying to find a flight out of Sacramento.
“You should go home and get some rest,” Hartley tells me in the early hours of the morning. I’m slumped in my chair, and I have a plane to catch in six hours. He hands me a card with his contact details. “I’ll have someone stationed outside your apartment until we’re sure that all of Alex’s accomplices have been brought to justice.” He sees my longing glance down the hall. “You can come back tomorrow, perhaps they’ll allow you in.”
Reality asserts itself. “I’m supposed to be leaving for Chicago in a few hours.”
“Can it wait?”
I stifle a sob. “I’m under contract.”
“Well, I guess you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. How soon can you get back?”
My mind draws a blank. I check the schedule on my phone, which is about to die.
“Not for at least ten days.” Even then, I’ll be pushing it. It’ll have to be a day stop.
“He’s going to need a long recovery, I’m sure he’ll still be right here when you get back.”
“I can’t just leave him without even saying goodbye.”
Hartley shrugs. I guess in a world of bullets and death, my feature film commitments must seem beyond trivial. I get to my feet, willing myself not to cry.
“I’ll tell him you said goodbye,” Hartley says. He doesn’t meet my eyes when he says it.
21
Fenn is waiting in the lobby when I arrive home.
“Jojo!” She barrels into me, giving me the first real hug I’ve had since Ace left. I burst into tears. “I heard about the shooting. I’ve been desperate, but no one would give me any information and I couldn’t get hold of Jude until just now…” she rattles this all off without pausing for breath. “He’s on his way over, Teddy too. Oh my God, Jojo, I’ve been beside myself. What happened?”
“It’s a really long story.”
Fenn whips out her phone. “Reports are saying that Alex is dead.”
“He is.” I feel nothing when I say it. “I’m sorry, Fenn,
but I can’t tell you anything. There’s an investigation and… well, I just can’t say anything.”
She shoves her phone back into her bag. “Understood. But you’re okay?”
“I’m okay.”
“What can I do?”
“Nothing, Fenn, honestly. All I need right now is a hot bath and to finish packing.”
She steers me toward the elevator. “Well, I can help with that at least.”
I’m soaking my weary bones in the sudsy water Fenn ran for me when Teddy barges into the bathroom, Jude hot on her heels.
I give a shriek of fright and try to cover myself with my face-cloth.
“What the hell happened?” Teddy asks furiously. Her lip is quivering and, before I can even get the words ‘I’m okay’ out of my mouth, she bursts into tears and drops to the floor beside the bath, drenching herself as she pulls me into a hug. I meet Jude’s eyes over her shoulder. They’re filled with concern.
“You okay?” He mouths the words. I nod as silent tears slide down my cheeks. Satisfied, he leaves the bathroom, closing the door quietly behind him. Teddy pulls herself together and helps me out of the bath. She dries my body, as gently as if I were a child, and then calls for Fenn to bring me something to wear. Ever-trustworthy Fenn brings me my most comfortable traveling outfit – soft jeans, sneakers and a cashmere sweater. I manage to dress myself, but that’s as far as I get before I collapse onto my bed.
“I’ve put your phone on charge,” Fenn says briskly, “and you’re all packed.”
Teddy gasps. “You’re not seriously leaving?”
“Oh,” Fenn adds, “and the press are here.”
“Fucking bloodhounds,” Jude growls, marching into my room in time to hear her last comment. “They’ve completely blocked the exit, Josie. You’re not going anywhere for a while.”
“I’m under contract,” I whisper. The thing is, it doesn’t sound like a big deal to anyone not in the know, but if I delay filming it costs the studio hundreds of thousands of dollars, which I’d be liable for. Not to mention the inconvenience to every single person who turns up. Not that I care about any of it, but this could ruin me. Legally, I have no choice but to go.
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