Laurel had endured Bernice’s rejection, but she wasn’t at all certain she could bear rejection from the man and the woman who might be her brother and sister.
Had anyone noticed that Shelley had a habit of tucking a corner of her lip between her teeth, the same as Laurel?
She opened her eyes to find Mace watching her.
“What did you think of Jake and Shelley?” he asked.
She blinked. What did he mean? Had he guessed... No. She was jumping to conclusions. “I liked them.”
“They’re pretty great,” he agreed. “They had a rough childhood, but they’ve made something of themselves, something good.”
What would it have been like to have grown up with such a brother and sister? She tamped down the longing in her heart and reminded herself that she was here to find answers, not to moon over what might have been. And she had Sammy, the best partner she could ask for.
As though aware of her thoughts, Sammy nuzzled her neck.
“You look far away,” Mace observed.
“No further than my thoughts,” she said lightly, though those thoughts were anything but light.
“Care to share?”
“No.” Afraid she’d sounded abrupt, she tacked on, “But thanks.” For right now, she’d hold her thoughts to herself.
“No problem.”
Only it was a problem. She, who had always prided herself on her honesty, was lying to the man who had saved her life and to the brother and sister she longed to call her own. She understood why she hadn’t yet told Jake and Shelley the truth, but why not Mace?
The answer came swiftly. She didn’t want to put him in the position of having to keep something from his bosses who were also his friends.
* * *
Mace ran a dispassionate gaze over Tony the Snitch. Tony was a slight figure who was frequently overlooked, which made him all the better at slipping in and out of places and ferreting out information.
Tony had earned his nickname legitimately. He sold what he learned on the streets...if you could meet his price. He had his fingers in a number of pies, including running errands for people who knew people. He moved in and out of the shadows with the certainty that no one would stop him. He provided a valuable service and took pride in it.
Mace had used the CI for several years now. Confidential informants—good ones—were worth their weight in gold. Tony was a sneak and a thief and would as soon sell you out as he would breathe, but he delivered the goods.
After settling Laurel in the hotel and ordering room service for the two of them, Mace had arranged for another of S&J’s operatives to stand guard outside her room. Guilt nagged his conscience as he thought of the intentional omission.
He told himself that Laurel needed rest, but that wasn’t the whole truth. He preferred working alone.
He had slipped out of his room and driven to the seamy side of the city, where back-alley deals were made with the same finesse as those in the upscale financial district. That the traders wore chains and leather rather than Brooks Brothers made no difference.
He preferred the first to the second, hands down. At least the chains and leather traders made no pretense of being anything other than what they were, unlike the Brooks Brothers–clad businessmen who hid behind facades of civility and polish.
Now he stood in one of those back alleys, with the intention of trading money for information. Steam rose from the concrete, turning the air thick and murky. A sliver of moon cast eerie shadows. The stench of overripe garbage permeated the night.
Mace ignored the stinging in his nostrils as he did the gang graffiti that covered every surface. Guilt scratched at his conscience as he thought of leaving Laurel behind. He soothed it with the reminder that she needed rest.
In his experience, security/protection jobs had prolonged periods where things moved at a glacial pace intermixed with intense action. With Laurel, there’d been few times of inaction, only continuous engagement with the enemy. He wanted to take advantage of the lull and get a handle on what he was dealing with.
Tony slunk out of the shadows. Quick as a snake and twice as crafty, he was whip thin with an oily edge that made Mace want to wash his hands after dealing with the man. Now, Tony hedged and dodged Mace’s questions about the Collective.
“You know me,” Tony whined to Mace in a singsong voice that was his trademark, “I don’t mess with the Collective. They’re bad news.”
Tony had his share of faults, but he had always been on the up-and-up with Mace. So when Tony said he didn’t mess with the Collective, Mace believed him.
As Tony fidgeted, Mace dug in his wallet for a fifty-dollar bill. It was a game where both parties knew the rules. Tony pretended not to know anything; Mace coaxed out what he needed by flashing cash under Tony’s nose. In the end, both got what they wanted.
“The Collective’s been active lately,” Mace said, easing Tony into the conversation by slipping the fifty into the man’s grimy hands.
“Word on the street is that someone took somethin’ they want back. They want it back real bad like.”
“Any idea of what that something is?”
“Some money. Maybe ten grand. But that ain’t the big thing. It’s a book.” Looking genuinely perplexed, Tony scratched his head. “I don’t know why they’re all worked up over a book. Can’t be worth much, least not to my way of thinkin’.”
The ledger. That had to be it. Mace kept his excitement to himself. “What makes this book so important?”
Tony lifted a scrawny shoulder. “Don’t know. There’s a reward for it.” His eyes lit with greed. “A big one. No questions asked.”
“If somebody came across this book, who should they contact about it?”
“That’s where it gets tricky,” Tony said. “No one wants to deal with the Collective. Like I said, it’s bad news.”
“What about the money? Any reward on it?”
“Yeah, but the book is worth a whole lot more.”
“You hear anything else, you let me know. Right?” Mace held out another fifty, which Tony deftly snatched and pocketed.
“Right.”
Satisfied that he’d learned all that he could, Mace headed back to his truck just as a figure stepped out of the shadows.
Laurel.
FIVE
Features drawn into a scowl, Mace fisted his hands on his hips. “What are you doing here?”
Deliberately, Laurel imitated the gesture, picturing two gunslingers preparing to draw down on each other in a B Western. “Don’t patronize me, Ransom. I’m Ranger-trained. Just like you. I can handle myself.”
“So I saw. But that doesn’t change the fact that you’re the client and I’m the operative.”
A punch of sound punctured the night. With an effort, she kept from flinching. A car’s backfire. Not a gunshot. Not an explosion in an abandoned school in Afghanistan.
Her heart settled, and her breathing returned to normal. Almost. The humidity pressed against her, slicking her skin with the sticky warmth of a Georgia summer.
She raised a brow. “What do you think? I heard you leave, so Sammy and I slipped out the door of your room since you thoughtfully provided a guard for mine. I waited until he was checking his phone, caught a taxi, and told the driver to follow your truck.” A smile found its way to her lips. “I’ve always wanted to say that.”
“You shouldn’t have come. This isn’t exactly the best neighborhood.”
Her brow lifted another notch as she recalled her posting in Jalal-Abad where nightly shootings, knife fights and even explosions were the norm. She rolled her lips between her teeth in a bid for patience. “Sammy and I have seen worse.” Automatically, she smoothed her hand over Sammy’s neck. “What did your snitch tell you?”
“How do you know I was talking to a snitch?”
“I worked CID,�
� she reminded him. “I know a snitch when I see one. Had a couple of my own.”
“He didn’t have much, but he did tell me that there’s a reward for the return of the money and the ledger.”
She licked her lips. “The Collective must be desperate to get their hands on that ledger.”
“That’s what I thought. The sooner we get it decoded, the better.”
“We’re working together. No more going off on your own.” She tapped a finger against his chest. “Got it?”
Mace caught her hand, stilled it. “What I do on my own time is my business.”
A zing of awareness started at her fingertips and raced up her arm at his touch. Without giving the gesture more importance than it deserved, she removed her hand from his grip. “You and I are joined at the hip until we figure this thing out.”
“You’re a hard lady.”
“No harder than I have to be.”
He nudged her to the truck.
She climbed in, Sammy following. “Tell me what else you learned.”
Mace started the ignition. “That’s it. Tony’ll get back to me when he knows something more. In the meantime, I want you off the streets. Don’t forget—the Collective has put a bounty on you.”
She angled herself so that her gaze met Mace’s. “I won’t let it keep me from doing my job.”
“You hired S&J. That makes it my job.”
She made a circling motion with her finger. “And here we go again, back to where we started. I’m sticking with you like white on rice. Get used to it.”
Laurel didn’t hear Mace’s response as the rapid report of M4s reverberated through the night. The hiss of a bullet between her and Mace was too close for comfort. It buried itself in the dashboard. A couple of inches either way would have been a different story.
“Stay down.” Mace was already reaching for his Glock.
Laurel didn’t bother responding. She drew her weapon, opened the door and crouched behind it. “Stay,” she commanded Sammy after making certain he had jumped to the floor of the truck.
Sammy gave a sharp woof but obeyed like the soldier he was.
Two men were advancing on them, firing repeatedly. Bullets stitched across the driver’s door, then the front and back tires, and finally worked their way to the truck’s engine block. Mace dove beneath the truck and rolled to the other side. Laurel steadied her aim, fired and hit one man in the shoulder. She wanted him alive.
Mace trained his gun on the second man.
The man must have decided not to risk taking on two opponents by himself, for he pivoted, causing Mace’s shot to miss by a hair, then retreated, ignoring his partner’s cries for help.
Just when Laurel thought he was going to make a clean getaway, he raised his weapon, but he didn’t aim in Laurel or Mace’s direction. He fired at his partner, hitting him squarely in the chest, then in the head.
Kill shot.
The shooter jumped into his vehicle and took off.
Mace ran to the downed man, Laurel at his heels. He bent and felt for a pulse, then shook his head.
“I wanted him alive,” Laurel said, disgust thick in her voice.
“The very reason his partner shot him,” Mace added.
His grim tone echoed her feelings. If they’d taken the man alive, they could have pumped him for information, which was exactly why his partner had killed him.
Laurel had seen her share of death—more than her share—and still felt her heart clench at the coldly executed murder. There’d been no hesitation on the part of the shooter. He’d taken out his partner with no more thought than he would have given in squashing a bug. Bile scorched the back of her throat. With an effort, she swallowed it back.
The breath she expelled reminded her that she was still alive. The prayer she silently uttered reminded her that it could have been her or Mace lying in the filthy street.
At Sammy’s whine, she let him out of the truck. He circled the body, then came to stand guard at her side. Like her, he had seen too much death.
* * *
Mace punched in 911. There’d be no avoiding questioning by the police. Not this time.
When a patrol unit showed up, he gave a thumbnail sketch of what had gone down. He and Laurel caught a ride to the precinct station in one of the squad cars and answered questions from a detective without giving away anything. Tell the truth but don’t volunteer information.
No, they didn’t know the men who had attacked them.
No, they didn’t have any valuables on them that would warrant a robbery.
Yes, they’d stay available for further questioning.
At 2:00 a.m., it was business as usual. In working for S&J, Mace had spent more time than he would have liked at police stations. Each bore the same smell of old coffee and industrial cleanser, with an underlayment of despair.
He pushed back his chair and stood. “If we’re done for now, I want to take the lady back to the hotel,” he said and then realized that his truck had been towed away.
“I’ll have one of the unies take you.” The police detective followed Mace’s frowning gaze to where Laurel sat.
Mace resisted the impulse to brush his knuckles over her cheek, to comfort both himself and her. The paleness of her face concerned him. If she didn’t get some rest soon, she’d collapse.
Sammy had stayed by her side during the hour-long session of questions. A low growl warned others to keep their distance.
“That’s a fine dog you have there,” the detective said. “Looks like he’s ex-military.”
“He is,” Laurel said. “He earned a Purple Heart.”
“My brother lost an arm in Iraq. He has a service dog now, also ex-military. That dog is the best thing that could have happened to him.”
Laurel shared an understanding smile with the detective. “I hear you.”
Mace cupped a hand under her elbow. “Let’s go.”
Outside, he breathed deeply. Even the humid Georgia night air was better than the recycled air of the station house. Sweat gathered at the nape of his neck and trickled down his back. During the firefight, he’d been calm, even cool. Now all he felt was a hot anger that he and Laurel were once again targets.
“I’m getting tired of wearing a bull’s eye on my back,” Laurel said, echoing his feelings. “How did they find us this time?”
“I’m guessing the same way that Tony knew about the reward for the ledger. Money talks. Pass enough of it around and somebody’s bound to collect on it. You and that book appear to be worth a bundle.”
She fluttered her eyelashes at him. “You sure know how to sweet-talk a girl, don’t you?”
Mace couldn’t help it. He laughed. “You beat everything, you know that? You’ve been hunted by the Collective, shot at multiple times, questioned by the police. And you still manage to make me laugh. What’s it take to get you down?”
Her expression sobered. “You’d be surprised.”
Not for the first time, Mace wondered what had put the worry in her eyes. Certainly she had reason for it. She’d gone through a bunch of bad stuff—starting with learning of her mother’s murder and then locking horns with the Collective on multiple occasions—but he sensed there was something more. Something important. Something she refused to tell him.
It made him all the more determined to discover her secrets. If somebody gave him a puzzle, he just had to solve it.
Laurel Landry was definitely a puzzle.
* * *
Laurel concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other.
Except for the couple of hours of rest she’d grabbed on the way to Atlanta, she had been going flat out for more than forty-eight hours. If she didn’t get a few hours’ sleep, she’d be no good to anyone. Including herself.
Mace ought to have been equally weary, but his face held only cold de
termination as he checked out her hotel room. “Can’t be too careful.”
For the last two days she’d been putting one foot in front of the other in an attempt to do what needed to be done. Now, she didn’t know what she would be called on to face tomorrow. Or the day after that.
The what-came-next pushed at the edges of her mind because she didn’t know what it was. The not knowing was harder to bear than the pulse-pounding action of facing down bad guys and trying to stay alive.
Mace stopped, frowned, eyebrows pulled tightly together. “You look lost.”
His words yanked her back to the present. “I feel lost.” She swallowed at the admission. She was a Ranger, had undergone some of the most intense training there was in the armed services, but she didn’t know where she was going next.
“It’ll be okay,” he said. “You aren’t alone.”
She grasped on to the words.
“Get some rest,” he said and then walked through the connecting door to his room.
Tired as she was, Laurel knelt at the side of the bed, bowed her head and said a prayer.
Talking to the Lord was something she did throughout the day. When she’d joined the Army, she realized how much she relied on Him and His constant care. He’d seen her through too many life-threatening situations to count and had never let her down.
She knew many in the Army and the Rangers who were not believers. It saddened her, but at the same time, it made her more grateful than ever for the faith that sustained her. She hadn’t learned about the Savior’s love at home. A friend had invited Laurel to attend church with her.
Her first experience at a service had filled her with such peace that she’d known she had to return. The warmth of joining others in worship, through prayer and song, kept her returning until she’d become a regular at church, volunteering when she was old enough to help teach Sunday school class for the younger children.
The prayer soothed away the rough edges of the day.
Inherited Threat Page 5