If he’d had a gun, he’d have shot the guy. Assuming he could’ve done it without endangering Rachel. Not likely. He didn’t even like guns, though. In his line of work, they didn’t factor overmuch. Force wasn’t how you got a result.
Steve barreled into the two of them at full speed. The assailant hit the ground first. Steve landed on top, Rachel sandwiched between them. She let out a cry.
He got a hold of the man’s wrist and squeezed. The assailant cried out as well, a throaty sound, but let go of the knife.
Steve tossed it aside.
He lifted off the man and pulled up Rachel in one move, so both of them stood together. He put her behind him. The assailant rolled away and came up on the balls of his feet. Steve saw his face. Realized who it was.
There was no time to process the why of it being this man. “Don’t try it. This attempt failed.”
“I don’t get paid to abort.” The throaty voice was familiar to him, and brought with it a rush of memories. The house. Training. Missions.
Steve said, “Your call.” Were they really going to do this?
The man pulled another knife. “Yes, it is.”
“I won’t let you hurt her.”
“Yes?” Rachel’s breathy voice came from behind him. “I need the police. Someone just tried to mug me.”
The assailant’s face twisted with malice. He threw the knife at Rachel. Steve dived in the same direction and turned. Rachel let out a squeak, as he grabbed her and spun. The knife glanced across the outside of the top of his arm.
Booted feet raced past him as the man fled the scene.
Steve hissed out a breath and glanced in the direction he’d gone. Disappeared.
“Yes, I’m here.”
He looked over at her. Eyes wide, she clutched the phone to her cheek. When her gaze settled on him he saw the relief on her face. Something swelled he couldn’t admit to. Or wouldn’t. Not when he was a fugitive and her life was in danger.
She said into the phone, “The man ran off.”
He could hear the person on the other end of her call, but couldn’t tell what they were saying. Did she realize he’d have to go now as well? Her height put her level with his chin, and he weighed probably eighty pounds more than she did. That was all the assessing he was going to do. Any more put him in dangerous territory that also wasn’t going to help him right now.
So she was everything he’d ever wanted in a woman, and he was a fugitive being hunted by every law office in the country. That wasn’t likely to change. It meant Steve was everything she didn’t need. And he would ruin her life if he tried to force their situation to be different somehow. Rachel and Steve were a one-time-maybe possibility that was now a never-could-be. That was life.
Steve needed to let it go. Let her go. But how could he, knowing she was in so much danger?
He said, “Hang up the phone,” in a low voice.
She lowered it and pressed a button on the screen. “Good to know Remy’s supersecret spy phone works to call 911, because I left mine in my office.”
“Are you okay?”
She shook off whatever adrenaline remained and lifted her chin. “Of course.”
He didn’t buy it. “Liar.”
Rachel shoved at his shoulder, a grin on her face. “Don’t call me a liar.”
He nearly smiled. “Don’t lie, and I won’t.” She narrowed her eyes. He said, “I have to go.”
“What? Why?”
“You called the cops. They can’t find me.” He was the top of America’s most wanted right now. He shouldn’t even be here. Let alone hang around and get taken in by the police. “I have to go.”
“Oh.” She actually looked sad.
“Did he hurt you?”
She shook her head.
“Where is your Secret Service detail, Rachel? You’re a senator. You can’t go walking around DC without protection.”
“I didn’t…” Her voice trailed off, and she said nothing more.
She didn’t need them? Didn’t want them? He didn’t have the luxury of time to wait around while she figured out which it was. “Call Bradley.” He started to back away.
“Wait!” She yelled it, probably louder than necessary. When he turned back, she said, “How did you know where I was?”
“Remy told me what you were doing.” Too bad there was no time to talk about that. The hacker had gone dark, targeted by the blackmailer. She’d contacted him as a favor and then disappeared below the radar again. For Rachel. “What were you thinking, going in there like that? It was too risky.”
“It could’ve ended this, and you’d have been able to come home.” Her face was so sad he wanted to hug her. “It didn’t work.”
He wanted to believe home was with her. He hadn’t realized how badly he wanted to believe that until he stood with her now.
“I won’t ever be able to come home, Rach.” Her gaze softened, but Steve couldn’t let it affect him. “I’ll always be stained by this, no matter what happens.” She of all people should understand that. Her past went with her. It colored how people saw her. And while he hated that for her, it meant they actually shared at least one thing.
Being accused as the blackmailer, forced into a corner by the man himself and then set up, wasn’t ever going to go away. The fact they now thought it was the vice president of the United States behind it all didn’t make it better. In fact, it made it that much worse. No one was going to believe them. Not when the blackmailer had scared so many people into silence. The rest he’d killed or buried under scandals, so they had no credibility.
Rachel was a wild card. She’d withstood the scandal and was still here. No wonder he wanted her dead, too.
Steve wasn’t going to skate out from under the charges. Even if they brought the blackmailer down, it would be he-said-he-said. Nothing more. The blackmailer was so good the evidence against Steve was compelling. The ensuing manhunt wasn’t about to let up until he was either in handcuffs or a body bag.
His life would be forever stained by the past.
“Steve—” The sound of police sirens filled the air.
He located the knife and tucked it in his jacket. “Gotta go. I have dinner plans.”
He didn’t look back, not wanting to know—or see—how that affected her. He just walked and kept walking. Scanned the streets for the assailant. Committed the man’s face, older now, to memory. Even if he located the man, would the blackmailer keep sending them after Rachel?
Would she ever be safe?
Then there was Double Down. Steve’s private security firm was in tatters. The office was closed. His employees on hiatus. The blackmailer had infiltrated every part of the business, and Steve hadn’t told any of them exactly how bad it was.
It took almost two hours to walk there—he didn’t need his face on a Metro security camera—but he eventually reached the tiny apartment complex. Via a corner grocery store where he picked up the items on the list she’d given him along with three folded twenties. This part of Washington wasn’t totally run down, but neither was it a huge step up from that. He lumbered up the steps, hauling the bags, and shifted them all to one hand so he could shove his key in the lock.
“I’m here.”
Mrs. Cromwell looked up from the recliner, blanket on her lap. Tight, white perm cut close to her head. Her wrinkled cheeks lifted. “You get my soup?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He resisted the urge to kick the door shut and used his hip instead. She’d called him on that last time. Made him wipe down the spot where his boot print had been with a wet rag.
He wandered to the kitchen, dumped the bags on the counter, and started putting things away. “You want bread or toast today?”
“Grilled cheese.”
Steve glanced at her. Grilled cheese was good. It meant her stomach was recovering from that bout of flu she’d had last week. Not so much fun to clean up, though. “Coming right up.”
She smiled, but didn’t move her attention away from the TV.
She loved The Price is Right so much he’d bought her a DVR, so she could watch one episode after another all day if she wanted. Didn’t matter if she just repeated the same episodes in a row. She didn’t mind.
Images filled his mind. That man and his knife and Rachel’s face.
Steve hung his head for a second and blew out a breath before he pushed the images away. He couldn’t even follow up and try to find out why the guy had been here or Steve would wind up exposing himself.
The bleed off of adrenaline made his arm smart. The slice he’d gotten from the knife he’d deflected away from Rachel stung. He found a rag under the sink and wet it, slapped it on his arm under the sleeve of his T-shirt, and turned so Mrs. Cromwell wouldn’t see.
It had mostly stopped bleeding.
Two grilled cheese sandwiches for him, one for her. She had her soup and he heated some chili for himself. When she was settled with her tray, he plopped himself on the couch.
“Good day?”
He swallowed a bite of sandwich and said, “It was all right.”
“That’s good.”
On the table was a pile of mail he’d brought in from her mailbox. Letters. Bills. Junk mail. Nothing from her sister, which she was waiting on. News about her niece’s new grandbaby.
All addressed to, Mrs. Elizabeth Cromwell. The elderly mother of disgraced FBI agent Hank Cromwell. A man who had kidnapped Steve’s friend and employee. He’d taken Megan back to the man who had terrorized her two years ago. There was nothing but white-hot rage in him. And if the man wasn’t dead, Steve would have shot him himself. Who cared about the consequences?
Megan was fine now, but the fact it’d happened at a time when Steve hadn’t been able to help find her, grated on him. Adrian, the man she had fallen in love with, had taken down another FBI agent and saved Megan’s life. But in that moment when she was held captive, as reality and nightmare had collided, she’d had no one.
A man she had trusted betrayed her.
“Those are some heavy thoughts.”
He glanced at Elizabeth. “Yes, ma’am.” His voice was thick. He glanced at the wall. The blank spaces that showed where she’d hung pictures of her son at one time. The day he’d graduated from the FBI academy. When he’d received a commendation. Gotten married. The life he’d lived before he threw it all away because the vice president had found out about his gambling problem and leveraged that to cause Megan even more pain.
“Does it have to do with Hank?” Elizabeth knew it all. He’d explained what she hadn’t read herself in the newspaper. Then he’d explained how he was part of all this.
Steve wanted to deny it wasn’t all connected. Instead, he said, “Yes.” Because she deserved honesty. And he needed it. “Just trying to figure out some stuff.”
“Well then eat up. Brain food, I always call it.”
He shared a smile with her.
“Sneaking out again tonight?”
Steve nearly choked on his chili. “Excuse me?”
“I might be old, but that just means I’m up plenty to use the ladies’ room. Don’t pretend you don’t sneak in and out of this house at all hours of the day and night. I’m not senile.” She also evidently didn’t mind harboring a fugitive. She’d told him she was too old, they’d never put her in jail. And if they tried, she was going to pretend she’d lost her marbles.
It had taken some convincing, and she’d argued her case. In the end it was the fact she’d needed help. Hank was gone. Who else would assist her?
“No, you are not senile.” She was entirely too astute. It was why he hadn’t lied to her. Instead, the fact she’d so obviously needed help had turned his interview, and trying to get more information about Hank Cromwell and the blackmailer, into an offer of assistance.
She knew they were helping each other out equally. She’d even said it straight out.
“Yes, I’m going to sneak out tonight,” he said. “A friend of mine is in danger. I need to make sure she’s all right.”
“A lady friend?”
Steve nodded.
“Well, then. Be the gallant hero.” She grinned, two rows of neat false teeth. “Works every time.”
Steve chuckled. He cleaned up, then helped her clean up and get ready for bed. He carried her to her room because it had made her chuckle the first time, and now it was just a thing.
“Tomorrow you’ll need to get my Christmas tree out of the hall closet. Get it set up.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Hopefully he would be here tomorrow. Alive and able to help her, instead of in jail for shooting at a parking lot full of FBI agents. What was the point in arguing he’d been under duress? Especially if they couldn’t prove their claim of a blackmailer.
He thought on it all the way to Rachel’s townhouse. She’d moved since her kidnapping, which he figured was reasonable since she’d been taken from her own living room.
Bradley’s car was at the curb. He was glad that her twin brother and his wife Alexis—Rachel’s best friend—could be with her after such a harrowing day.
Bradley worked for Double Down. Then there was Mint, who had found Emma and fallen in love with her. He was keeping her safe currently, tasked with retrieving what she’d put in a safe deposit box and ensuring she testify to the FBI.
Megan was the last member of Double Down. She was former FBI, and she’d hooked up with Adrian Walker who was an FBI agent investigating the blackmailer.
They’d lost two operatives to an explosion, which put them down to four. He’d fired Megan’s mom from being his assistant and then sent her on an all-expenses paid vacation where the blackmailer would never find her. It was all such a convoluted mess that he didn’t know where to even begin, or end, the train of thought before it crashed and burned.
Steve halted across the street. No point trying to talk to Rachel when she had her family there. He’d have to wait until they left.
A car engine drew his attention. It slowed as it passed the house. Not cops, not even unmarked.
Someone was watching her house.
Chapter 3
Rachel’s brother squeezed her shoulder as he passed and headed for her kitchen. She dumped her purse on the floor beside her hall closet and went to the bathroom that was off her bedroom.
“Lex, you want tea?” Bradley called out to his new wife.
“Yes, please.”
Rachel smiled to herself. So polite. She grabbed a change of clothes—yoga pants and a huge sweater that said, “Army.” Bradley had been in the Navy, and a SEAL even, but she was an equal opportunity supporter. Everyone knew Senator Rachel Harris was one hundred fifty percent behind the military.
She washed up and changed, then tied her hair up in a messy knot before she headed back to the living room. Alexis and Bradley stood together at the stove, heads close. Talking quietly. The soft look on her brother’s face wasn’t lost on Rachel. He only ever did that with Alexis.
Now they looked so natural. Like they’d been married for thirty years—but without the part where two people eventually got on each other’s nerves. They were all best friends. The three of them had been family for years, since before Rachel and Bradley’s parents were killed. Now things had changed, and Rachel was sharing her best friend with her brother. That part wasn’t lost on her either.
She was happy for them and still part of their tribe, but now Bradley and Alexis had something which had nothing to do with her. A fact she lamented, even while she accepted it was a good thing. They had a life now. They would have their own family.
Alexis spotted Rachel standing there, staring at them like a creeper. And yet, she smiled. That was just her way. Alexis was good. She was nice. Rachel was the one with the problem—in more ways than one.
She moved into the kitchen, pulled a glass out of her cupboard, and filled it at the refrigerator.
“Tea?”
She turned back to Alexis and sucked down the water while she shook her head.
Bradley wasn’t buying it. “Are
you sure you’re okay?”
“Steve is the one I’m worried about. I think that knife cut him.”
“I know. You kept telling the cops that.”
She leaned back against the counter. “I wouldn’t have had to keep repeating myself if they would just accept the fact he’d been there and saved my life. But noooo,” she dragged the word out. “They insist he’s this criminal. Like any of this is his fault.”
“And aligning yourself with him?” Bradley raised his eyebrows.
Alexis stood quietly beside him. She knew how they could be with each other, and it was wise not to get in the middle of it. Instead, she turned to the kettle and poured two cups.
“You think I’m not going to tell anyone who will listen about how he’s innocent of all of this.” She lifted her palms and then let her hands fall back to her sides. “How can they think he did any of this?”
Alexis used her soft voice to say, “He did shoot at the agents outside that restaurant. He made it so that the bad guy could get away.”
Bradley shot Rachel a look. “Exactly.”
“And they don’t think it’s suspicious that the FBI have been investigating a blackmailer, and then Steve shoots at a bunch of agents and doesn’t hit a single one? No one can look at that and not think he’s under duress and doing whatever he can to keep everyone involved safe.”
“Including himself?”
Okay, so yes, she wanted to know what the blackmailer had threatened him with. She asked her brother, “You know about his past. What might the vice president have on him?”
Bradley’s jaw twitched. “I don’t know much about his career before Double Down, only that he worked for the state department.”
“What is that supposed to mean? I thought you knew him when you were a SEAL.”
“It’s complicated.” He turned to the fridge and retrieved the milk. Stalling.
“Spit it out, Bradley. What do you know?”
Alexis said, “Is it a security clearance thing?” She glanced at Rachel, ever the peacemaker. “Maybe he can’t tell you.”
“He can tell me.”
Bradley shook his head, then he took a sip of his tea.
Deadly Holidays Page 2