They passed the K-9 unit, a beautiful German shepherd being led by his leash, and Jack, who’d been lingering by the hall door, waiting for Kareem to clear out so he could begin searching the house with the rest of his team.
It wasn’t against the rules for Jack to be there, but it wasn’t the most brilliant idea he’d ever had, either. The other members of the team could handle the raid just fine without him, and drug dealers being confronted with business partners who turned out to be undercover federal agents tended to react badly.
But Jack had wanted this confrontation. He’d wanted Kareem Gregory to know who he was and who’d brought him down at last. He’d wanted the SOB to regret the threats he’d made the other night, to back down in the face of the full might of the United States government. You couldn’t get away with treating federal agents that way. Maybe that shit flew in Columbia or Afghanistan, but it didn’t work on American soil.
Then Kareem Gregory paused on his way out the door and his expression told Jack that he’d never in his life miscalculated as badly as he had by engaging this monster on the playing field. You didn’t want to be on Kareem Gregory’s radar and, worse, you didn’t want to be in his sights.
Jack was now both.
They stared at each other for one beat … two … and then a twisted mockery of a smile curled one side of Kareem’s mouth. “You scared my wife, man.”
Like Jack gave a shit. He raised his eyebrows. “Sorry about that.”
Kareem leaned close and Jack saw so much violence in his gleaming eyes that the fine hairs rose all along Jack’s arms. “You remember what I told you, don’t you, man?”
Dexter jerked Kareem’s arm and marched him out before Jack could respond. “That’s enough with the chitchat, Gregory.”
Kareem seemed not to hear. He walked on past but turned his head as he went, staring at Jack over his shoulder and refusing to break eye contact until he was led down the stairs of his own front porch.
Behind them in the dining room, Kira Gregory began to sob and, between the sobs, to scream. “Kareem,” she cried. “Kareem.”
“Did you have any further contact with Kareem Gregory?”
“Not until I testified at his trial,” Jack said.
“Why is that?”
Jack stared at Kareem, fixated on and obsessed with the gleaming light of satisfaction on the man’s face. If it was the last thing he ever did in his life—if it required his dying breath—Jack would wipe that look off the man’s face one day.
Oh yes. He would.
“Because,” Jack said, “my mother was murdered two days later.”
A murmur of surprise rippled across the courtroom, drawing Jack’s attention to the jury and spectators for the first time in what seemed like days. What he saw made his heart freeze and then contract into a painful knot of terror.
There.
Way in the back, near the door, sat a woman wearing glasses and listening intently. She had her hair pulled up and no makeup on and looked utterly unremarkable except that she was the most beautiful woman in the world trying to look like she wasn’t, which was about like a young Lena Horne pretending she was a farmhand.
Jesus Christ.
Amara.
Sitting four rows back from Kareem Gregory, the man who would torture and kill her if he had the slightest idea what she meant to Jack.
Chapter 26
The text was short, only two words:
Law library.
It was enough.
So when court broke for the recess, Kira was ready with her excuses.
“We knew Parker was going to be good.” Jacob Radcliffe spoke in the pumped-up tones of a high-school football coach giving his losing team a halftime pep talk. For emphasis, he clapped a supportive hand on Kareem’s shoulder and steered him out of the courtroom and toward one of the private conference rooms down the corridor.
Kira had the strong urge to tell the man that Kareem hated this kind of condescending speech, but why bother? If Kareem’s negative energy was focused on his lawyer, then that increased her chances of slipping away for a few minutes.
“We’ll take a bite out of him this afternoon, on cross,” Jacob continued. “We’ve still got a long way to go.”
Wanda swooped in. “How’re you holding up, baby? You need anything?”
“I’m good, Mama.” Kareem focused on Kira, pinning her with the full intensity of his attention until she felt x-rayed. “How you doing?”
“I’m good. But I need some fresh air.”
“Oh?” Kareem raised his brows with mild concern. “You’re not coming with us to the conference room, Kira?”
Kira tried to look pained, as though the thought of missing one second of any aspect of Kareem’s life was enough to double her up with grief. “I’ll be there in a minute. I might walk to the corner store and get some mints or a granola bar. Can I get anyone anything?”
Everyone shook their heads and Kareem and his entourage headed off down the hall and disappeared into the conference room. She watched them go, waiting until she heard the satisfying bang of the shutting door before she wheeled around, punched the elevator button, and ducked inside the car.
When the elevator stopped, she hurried out and followed the signs to the law library, which, she saw to her dismay, had windows that looked out into the hall. Great. All she needed was for some passing person to glimpse her in there and it’d be all over for her. Not to mention all the security cameras that had probably captured her every step on tape. Kareem didn’t have access to the security tapes in the federal courthouse—at least not as far as she knew—but that was the problem with Kareem. You just never knew.
Her heart thudded into overdrive as she sailed past the information desk and a couple of eager-beaver women who were probably reference librarians and glanced up from their computers looking anxious to help.
Kira gave them a quick smile and kept moving since she wasn’t a legal professional and didn’t know what she’d say if confronted; she didn’t know the name of a single law book and asking for the romance paperbacks would probably be a dead giveaway.
Kira marched past what looked like a million sets of reference books. Trying not to look like a tourist, she scanned every row out of the corner of her eyes and was almost at the emergency exit at the far end in the back, when a hand reached out from one of the rows, grabbed her wrist and snatched her between the stacks.
The momentum brought her up against the unyielding and disturbing wall that was Dexter Brady. With a startled squeak, she pressed her palms against the starched white cotton of his dress shirt, caught a whiff of the soapy freshness of his skin, and registered that it was him. Whether her body or her mind registered it first, she didn’t want to think about. All she knew was that he was here and on her side now, and her future was much brighter.
After one arrested second staring down at her, he pushed her away as though she contaminated him and then, for good measure, took a step back and dropped his hands. His obvious revulsion for all things Kira Gregory caused an odd pang in her chest, but they both had more important things to think about.
“Did you get the search warrant?” she whispered.
“It should be ready by the time I get back to the office.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to come and support Jack while he testified.”
“When will you raid the warehouse?”
His expression sealed off, revealing nothing. “Soon. So you need to be careful.”
“Do you think you’ll find anything?”
“We’re hopeful.”
“Will you participate in the raid?”
“Yes,” he said.
Oh, God. It was one thing to know she was sending a group of faceless agents into a dangerous situation based on nothing stronger than her gut feeling, another to know that this agent could get hurt or killed.
“Stay safe,” she told him.
Those unfathomable black eyes bored into her. She
had the unsupportable feeling that something was right on the tip of his tongue, something important, but he must have wrestled it into submission because he nodded once and turned to go.
“Wait here,” he said over his shoulder. “I’ll leave first and then—”
A sudden wave of gratitude rolled over her. Here, finally, was someone to help her get away from Kareem. She’d laid all the groundwork and done everything she could think of to help herself, true. She’d have her last two exams today and tomorrow and then she’d have her degree and be a self-supporting nurse. But Dexter Brady was about to give her that last little boost she needed, the help and protection that could give her half a chance at building a new life far away from Kareem, and she’d never forget this kindness.
A burst of courage—or maybe it was sheer stupidity—propelled her to stop him by touching his arm. He paused, glancing back at her with a question in his eyes.
“Thank y—” she began helplessly, but thank you was for the neighbor who picked up your mail while you were out of town. Thank you wasn’t for the man whose belief in you gave you a second chance at life.
So she moved her hand to his cheek and, when he started but didn’t jerk away, stood on tiptoe and kissed his jaw. “Thank you.” Then she hugged him with her arms tight around his neck, and that, finally, put him over the top.
His entire body went rigid enough to support a highway overpass. Reaching up, he wrenched her hands loose and pushed her back. He shot her one glittering glance and immediately looked away.
Without another word, he stalked off and Kira stared after him because the way he hated her stung, and she’d be a liar if she said it didn’t. But now wasn’t the time to nurse hurt feelings.
She counted to a hundred and twenty and then slipped out of the stacks and out of the library. Back to the elevator, her mind full of plans for the future and her exams and the home she would build for herself and Max as soon as she got her divorce and Kareem was out of her life forever.
When the car stopped, she ran into a man for the second time that day and her faint hopeful smile froze on her lips like a gargoyle’s grimace.
“There you are, baby,” Kareem said. “I was wondering where you’d gotten to.”
Kira stammered and flushed and finally recovered enough to reach into her skirt pocket and pull out the pack of Wint-O-Green Life Savers she’d luckily thought to put there this morning before she left the house. “I got some mints,” she told him. “Want one?”
Jack got back to the safe house after ten that night, nearly blinded by his anger or his fear, he couldn’t quite tell which. His sky-high blood pressure had never recovered from the shock of seeing Amara sitting up in court—sitting right there in court like a fucking spectator—and he now had a pulsing headache in his temples and a roaring in his ears that sounded like an endless bullet train streaking by.
There’d been no chance for him to confront Amara or the unspeakably stupid chimps with guns who’d allowed her to leave the confines of the safe house and go to court like she was catching the latest Will Smith movie.
After the morning recess, he’d testified further, and then after lunch he’d been cross-examined by Kareem’s mouthpiece. His fun-filled day had continued with a session at the U.S. Attorney’s Office to prepare him for tomorrow’s redirect examination, and then he finished off with a debriefing with Dexter Brady and the rest of the team about today’s raid of one of Kareem’s warehouses.
He was running on less than fumes because all he’d had was three packs of cheese crackers for dinner, and all it would take was one rolled eye or pursed lip to make him blow.
Some of his murderous intent must have shown on his face because all conversation stopped dead the second he walked into the kitchen. Everyone was gathered in their usual spots around the table, Sammy at the computer, Anthony bent over his paperwork, and Amara, the cause of all his turmoil, sitting there knitting some fluffy purple scarf-type thing, her face blank, sweet and politely puzzled, as though he was the one with the problem.
“We’ll be out front,” said the two agents who’d escorted him home, and then they filed out, clearly preferring the chill outside to the one in here.
Sammy cleared her throat and waited; Anthony kept his head bent low over the paperwork; Amara met his gaze with a defiant one of her own.
She looked stronger today, he thought, ripping and jerking his way out of the Velcroed black Kevlar vest he wore whenever he left the safe house. Her color was brighter and she looked rested, although God knew he hadn’t let her get much sleep last night or the night before.
Free at last from the oppressive thing, which somehow weighed much heavier on him than three to five pounds, he held it over the table and let it land with a satisfying thud, right in the middle of all their shit.
They all froze.
“Does someone want to tell me,” he said carefully, keeping an iron fist locked around his temper, at least for now, “who the genius is that brought Amara to court today?”
Amara surged to her feet, her chin hitched up. “Don’t talk to them that way. I was the one—”
The second that calm voice registered in his ear drums, he lost it. So much for the whole remain-calm plan. “I am getting to you.” His roaring reverberated in his throbbing temples, as though someone had clapped a set of cymbals to either side of his head. “For now I want you to sit down and shut up so I can talk to these fucking idiots—”
Anthony stood up, saddled his white charger and rode to the rescue, coming to stand between Jack’s raging mania and the women. “Okay, chief,” he said reasonably, not looking at all scared, which did nothing to smooth out Jack’s mood. “You’re going to need to calm down a little—”
Jack was ready to take off the man’s head if he inched so much as a hair’s width closer, but then Amara hurried around and put her hand on Jack’s arm. “Can I talk to you upstairs?”
“Talk?” Snarling, Jack ripped his arm free from her touch. “What a brilliant idea. Where were all your brilliant ideas earlier today, do you suppose?”
Amara kept quiet, exchanged glances with the two clowns who apparently didn’t understand that protecting Amara from Kareem Gregory necessarily entailed keeping her out of the same room with him, and headed for the steps.
Jack followed, trying to calm down, but his absolute terror got the best of him. All he could see were nightmare images, some that had already happened and some that could still happen.
Amara, shot and bleeding on the ground, passing out from the pain. Amara in the hospital, with surgery and tubes and bandages. Kareem, sitting in his chair in the courtroom, happening to glance around and get a peek at Amara and then putting two and two together. Kareem dispatching another assassin, one with better aim this time. Amara, bleeding … dying. Amara, dead. Her amazing light extinguished for no good reason, and all because of her unfortunate association with Jack. They’d been lucky once, but everyone’s luck ran out sooner or later and he wasn’t trusting Amara to Lady Luck anyway because Lady Luck was a raging bitch.
He followed her into their bedroom, clicked on the light, and shut the door.
She paced a few feet away, apparently bracing herself, tossed the knitting on the dresser and then turned to meet his gaze with those big brown eyes that tied him up in knots every time.
Jack’s emotion tightened his throat until it felt raw and the words came out hoarse. “Why—” he began, broke off and had to try again. “Why did you do that?”
This wasn’t going to come out easy. He could tell by the way she stammered and yet her eyes still flashed defiant, as though she wanted to fling whatever it was right in his face but also didn’t want to give too much away. In the end, she just came right out with it.
“I wanted to know what Kareem Gregory has done to you.” That name coming out of that mouth was the kind of unholy combination that generally sent people running for a priest. “You wouldn’t tell me everything. What else was I supposed to do?”
&n
bsp; The momentary relative calm he’d managed to produce exploded in a shower of what the fuck? “What were you supposed to do?” he shouted. “How about stay here, nice and safe, in the safe house—I was kind of hoping the name would tip you off about that, but I guess I was wrong—take a nap, and recover from your gunshot wound? Did you ever think that might have been a better use of your time, Bunny?”
Now she had the mulish, crossed-arm look of a sulky child. “I’m not a prisoner. How much knitting do you think I can do in a day’s time? You can’t keep me locked away here—”
He could not be hearing this. Those words could not be coming out of that woman’s mouth. “Keep you locked away? We’re trying to keep you alive! Do you not get that?”
“I get that everyone was paying attention to your testimony. No one gave me a second look and Kareem Gregory didn’t even—”
This was her explanation? This was supposed to make him feel better?
“But he could have, Amara. That’s the point: he could have—”
“—notice me and I had on my glasses—” “Your glasses?” His snort was so violent with sarcasm he nearly choked on it. “Well, that’s fucking brilliant. When you and Clark Kent put on your glasses, God knows no one could ever recognize you.”
“You yourself said you thought I was probably safe—”
“Probably?” His anger was so great that he needed to hit something. Since he didn’t want it to be her, he pounded his fist against the wall and, when that didn’t give him the head-clearing burst of pain he needed, pounded it again. “I don’t deal with probably when we’re talking about your life.”
“Look.” Taking a deep breath, she smoothed out her voice, ran her hands through her hair and worked at a tiny reasonable smile that never quite made it. “Look. Here I am, safe and sound. There you are. Nothing happened, so why are we—”
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