One Night More

by Mandy Baxter

  Oh, yeah. He was so fired. “Yes, sir. We’ll be there.”

  “And Galen,” Monroe added. “Cuff her. If the feds see her walk in as anything less than a suspect in custody you’ll be turning in your badge when you hand her over.”

  Great. Davis had to be responsible for Monroe’s nasty attitude. He liked Harper. No way would he want her cuffed. “She’s in my custody now. We’re wrapping up a few loose ends.”

  “Get the kid a donut on the way over,” Monroe said in a low voice. “We’ll get her out of this.”

  “Will do.”

  Galen hung up feeling a little better than he had a moment ago. Despite the fact that Monroe was pissed at him, he knew that his boss was ultimately in his corner. There was no love lost between any of them and Davis. Hopefully, Harper wouldn’t put up too much of a fight when it came to cuffing her. To be honest, Galen was more afraid it would turn him on than anything—they couldn’t afford another pit stop.

  As he made his way back to the conference room, Galen was hopeful that Harper had put the finishing touches on her story. He pushed open the conference room door, prepared to give her an update, but the words died on his lips. Harper’s chair was empty, her laptop gone, and lying on the floor, unconscious, was one Oregonian employee. Galen reached for his gun as his heart jumped up into this throat. How could he have been such an idiot to think that Harper would be safe anywhere?

  A low moan issued from the guy on the floor and Galen rolled him over onto his back and gave his cheek a light slap. He blinked a few times and stared up at Galen as if he might be seeing more than one of him. Great. “What happened? Where’s Harper?”

  “I tried to stop him, but the guy slammed my head with the butt of a gun.” He sat up and rubbed the back of his head. “After he hit me, I think he told Harper to head for the roof, but I’m not sure. It’s all sort of fuzzy. He said if any of us made a sound, he was going to put a bullet in her head.”

  Fuck. Panic swirled in Galen’s chest and his brain buzzed with anger so intense he was seeing red. He pushed himself off the floor and said over his shoulder as he flew toward the door, “Call 911, Special Agent Davis at the FBI, and Curt Monroe at the U.S. Marshals Service. Tell them to get down here, now.”

  Being held at gunpoint wasn’t much of a shock to Harper’s system at this point. The fact that it was Jason Meader on the other end of that gun, however, was a different matter altogether. She’d always figured him to be more of the brains of the operation. His pricey suits and manicured hands didn’t shout, “I’m the muscle here!” She was going to have to rethink that assumption now, though. Because the way he hauled her around like she weighed nothing at all gave her a glimpse into a side of Jason that she hadn’t known existed.

  “The first thing they teach you in special ops is that mercy is for the weak. In a combat situation, it’s kill or be killed. Sorry, Harper, but you stepped right onto the battlefield.”

  Ugh. If he really wanted to get rid of her, he should try talking her to death. She didn’t think she’d be able to stand much more of his arrogant banter. It wasn’t like he was talking to her, really. Just at her. Either way, he liked the sound of his own voice. That much was obvious. She hadn’t realized he had a military background. Another failure in the investigative department. Way to go, Harp.

  “You must be some kind of magician, Jason. Either that or you have an eviler twin I don’t know about. I’m assuming your alibi was checked, yet there’s no way you could have gone back to the office to get Ellis’s phone and stuck around to shoot him.”

  Jason graced her with a self-congratulatory smirk. Arrogant jerk. “Always the nosy reporter, aren’t you, Harper? I was almost around the corner when I heard you grilling Ellis. He’d been hard enough to contain; I wasn’t going to risk him running off at the mouth. So, I doubled back, took care of business, and when those idiot security guards chased me off, I headed for the office. Lucky for me Ellis’s secretary was a flaky air head who couldn’t remember the exact time I’d come in. Davis was already hot for you as a suspect so it wasn’t tough to placate the FBI. Besides, with my military record, I was above reproach as far as Davis was concerned.”

  Davis. Ugh! Harper was going to smack him in the face if she lived through this. “You know, killing me isn’t going to do much for your campaign, Jason.”

  He gave her a rough shake as he ushered her up the last flight of stairs to the door that opened up to the roof. He might not like what she had to say, but hey, it was still the truth. In a few minutes he’d be on everyone’s most wanted list and he could kiss his future political career good-bye. She’d published her story the moment he’d come through the conference room door, gun pointed straight at her face with a threat to unload the clip into her head if she made a sound. Meader was a real tough guy picking on a girl. Asshole.

  “You called me, Harper.” Jason spoke as though trying to rationalize with her. “You were feeling guilty about all of the problems you’ve caused in my life. Throwing accusations around in an effort to further your career.” He shook his head solemnly. “The stress was simply too much for you.”

  His fingers bit into Harper’s arm and the cold metal of the gun barrel jammed into her ribs with enough force to cause her to cry out. She’d have a nasty bruise from that one, no doubt. “No one is going to believe that.”

  “Women like you sometimes do stupid things to get attention,” Jason replied. “It won’t be much of a stretch.”

  Harper didn’t know what offended her more. The women like you bit or the fact that he thought she was some attention whore out to snag the spotlight at any cost. What a jerk. Harper looked away from Jason’s smug expression and her stomach took a dive to the soles of her feet. The edge of the building was only thirty or so feet away now and it appeared that they weren’t going to stop for an in-depth chat any time soon. “The guy you hit in the conference room can identify you, and my boss has Ellis’s flash drive,” Harper blurted in an effort to buy some time. “I told him everything. About the money, the embezzlement, the Mobile Hazard Assessment. Whatever you do to me will be a waste of your time. You can’t kill everyone here.”

  “I’m a problem solver, Harper.” Jason said. “The SEALs used me to clean up messes for them and so did Ellis. The man was a serial sinner. He thought admitting to a couple of affairs would clear his conscience, but the thing is, he never really stopped with any of it. He slept around, drank like a fucking fish. Who do you think cleaned him up and kept the media far enough away that they couldn’t smell the liquor seeping from his pores? I managed to keep that ex-Ranger FBI idiot off my back, too. You wouldn’t believe how easy it is to lull someone into a sense of comfort when you have similar backgrounds. All I had to do was share a few combat tales with good ol’ Agent Davis and he looked the other way. I spent two years cleaning up after Ellis, and that money was supposed to be my bonus for a job well done. And just when we were close to a payday, that asshole has a change of heart?” Harper dug her heels into the asphalt roof, desperate to slow their progress. The edge was only ten feet away now, and she didn’t like where this was going. “I knew when you ambushed us in that parking garage that he was going to spill it all to you. The timing couldn’t have been worse. So I shot him. Kremer should have taken care of you at the museum. The guy can’t shoot for shit, though. I guess if you want a job done right, you have to do it yourself. And once I get rid of you, I can get back on track to getting my goddamned money.”

  Harper guessed she could be thankful the fire marshal was a terrible shot, but it didn’t do much to put her at ease right now.

  “You don’t think someone’s going to hear the gunshot?” Harper’s heart beat wildly in her chest and her vision darkened at the periphery. Please, oh please don’t let me pass out before he kills me. “This isn’t a very stealthy move, Jason.”

  “Like I said. The stress got to you. You felt guilty about the trouble you stirred up in an attempt to further your career. I tried to talk you ou
t of it, but . . .” He paused and brought his face down to hers, his expression that of contrived concern “You jumped before I could stop you.”

  Oh, God. He was going to push her off the roof and watch as she fell to her death. Harper’s chest constricted and she fought for a deep breath. She couldn’t die like this, pitched off the roof by some crazy asshole after a few bucks.

  “You’ll be nothing more than another sad, sorry girl who threw herself off a roof. The media buzz will die down after a week or so. No one will care. No one will miss you. And my secrets will be safe and sound.”

  “My boss has Ellis’s flash drive.” Did Jason miss that tidbit? Was he even listening to her?

  “That’ll be easy enough to recover. I know some pretty powerful people, Harper, who’ll be more than happy to lean on your boss and that idiot I clocked in your office for me. I’m not worried.”

  “I uploaded the story on the Ellis scandal to our website right before you walked into the conference room.” The words spilled from Harper’s mouth in a rush. “Your secrets will be national news by the end of the day.”

  Jason paused with mere feet separating Harper from a five-story drop to unyielding pavement. She was going to die. Her family would see her death sensationalized on every news channel in the country. The public would be convinced that she was some sort of fame-crazed lunatic who lied and concocted stories to get ahead. The fact that she’d been acting like a secretive fool, withholding evidence from the FBI, would only lend credence to Meader’s interpretation of events. And Galen. Oh God. The thought of leaving him left a dark, gaping hole in her heart. She’d waited for him. Hoped and prayed for an entire year that she’d see him again. And now that they’d found each other, she’d never see him again. Never feel the heat of his skin against hers or shiver at the warm timbre of his voice in her ear.

  She couldn’t let her life end like this.

  “You’re lying,” Jason said, his eyes searching hers for some hint of truth. “Ellis’s files were password protected.”

  Harper took a shuddering breath. “Blake. Swan. Lake.”

  Jason brought his arm up, the gun clenched tightly in his fist. He swung at her and a white-hot pain exploded in Harper’s skull as the back of his fist made contact with her face. She fell to her knees and stars swirled in her vision as her surroundings grew dark. Her cheek throbbed and she wanted to swipe at the warm trickle of blood that tickled her face. But she couldn’t raise her arm higher than her waist. Dizzy and weak, she listed to one side and then the other. Two Jason Meaders hovered over her. Gah. As if one weren’t bad enough. She’d pass out and he’d throw her off the roof while she was unconscious.

  Good-bye, Washington Post. Good-bye, career. Good-bye, life she’d worked so hard for, family, friends, colleagues. Good-bye, delicious apple fritters and Voodoo Donut.

  Good-bye, Galen.

  The two Jasons leaned down and, as Harper’s vision cleared, became one. He wrapped his left hand around her throat and hauled her up to stand, and then jabbed her in the ribs again with the gun. Ouch.

  “You’re a pain in my ass,” he snarled as he forced her to the edge of the building. Harper fought as hard as she could, but she was still a little dazed and had a hard time holding her ground. Her feet slipped on the asphalt roof and she leaned in toward Jason, winding her fists into his shirt. If she was going over, she was taking him with her. “I can still discredit you, though. Once I get Ellis’s flash drive back, your so-called story will be nothing but libel. Maybe I’ll sue your paper and make a little extra cash on the side.”

  “Jason.” Harper’s voice was nothing more than a ragged whisper with his palm squeezing her throat. Air. She needed more air. He wouldn’t really suffocate her before he threw her off the building, would he? What a sadistic son of a bitch. “Please. Don’t.”

  “You shouldn’t beg, Harper,” Jason said as he released his grip on her throat to pry her fists from his shirt. She wasn’t strong enough to fight him. “It’s beneath you.”

  He pushed at her and she felt herself lean back. Harper peered over the edge of the building at the street below. Should she pray? Send one last positive burst of energy out into the universe before she died? Harper closed her eyes as she fought for a deep breath.

  Please, God, don’t let it hurt.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Galen took the last set of stairs three at a time and burst through the door to the roof like a man possessed. Each second that passed was a second closer to Harper’s death. Whoever had snatched her out of the conference room wasn’t bringing her up here for a friendly chat, and he prayed that he could get to her before anything happened.

  The haze of panicked rage that clouded Galen’s vision cleared the instant he saw Harper leaning over the edge of the building. He recognized the asshole holding her by the throat as Senator Ellis’s aide. His goddamned smug face had been plastered all over the news for weeks. Harper’s right cheek was swollen, the skin split and bleeding, and Galen promised himself that this man would feel, tenfold, every injury he’d inflicted upon the woman he loved.

  But he wouldn’t get retribution without a clear head.

  He’d been conditioned to keep his shit together in high-stress situations like this one. His SOG training hadn’t mentioned anything about keeping it together when you were emotionally attached to the person you were supposed to protect, though. Logic warred with irrationality. Years of training dictated that he play it cool. Keep his distance. Do nothing to rile the suspect. The other part of him, the man who couldn’t lose her, wanted to charge at the gunman and put a bullet through his chest.

  “U.S. Marshals Service,” Galen announced loud enough for the people down on the street to hear him. “Put the gun down and step away from Miss Allen.”

  The asshole had the nerve to chuckle. He turned to face Galen and wrapped his fist around Harper’s throat. “You guys are the laughingstock of federal law enforcement, you know that? Special Agent Davis and I had a good laugh at your expense this morning. I mean, seriously, you practically let Harper parade herself around town with a target on her back. Not exactly the kind of spectacle you want from a high-profile witness. And bringing her here?” He shook his head. “Sorry, Marshal. But that was a bad call on your part.”

  Galen clamped his jaw shut so it wouldn’t fall to his feet. If Monroe had known he and Harper were here, it wasn’t a far stretch to think that Davis had known as well. And that dumb son of a bitch had let it slip to Ellis’s murderer right where he could find Harper. The Marshals Service was a laughingstock? The FBI had them beat by miles.

  “This place will be surrounded by police, FBI, and marshals in a matter of minutes. I suggest you opt for the easy way out and jump. But since I don’t take you for a coward, you should give yourself up now and make this easier on everyone.”

  The guy had the nerve to smile at Galen. “You’re right. I’m not a coward. And I’m not giving myself up, either. I’ve gotten out of worse scrapes than this before. She’ll be dead by the time anyone else shows up. You can join her if you want.”

  He had the sharp expression and calm demeanor of someone with a lot of experience in the field. If Galen had to guess, his money was on special forces. Trying to talk him out of whatever it was he had planned was out of the question. Guys like that didn’t bargain. They picked a course of action and saw it through to the end, no matter what. Which made Harper’s predicament that much worse. At least fifty feet separated them. He’d never make it to her before this asshole pushed her off the roof. And likewise, he could take a shot, but doing so put Harper at even greater risk. He could take them both over the edge or his finger might slip on the trigger and he’d shoot Harper anyway.

  Fuck.

  Galen felt Harper’s eyes on him, but he refused to look at her. If he gave any indication that he was overly concerned for her—felt anything for her—the guy would only exploit their situation and expedite her death.

  “I think we need to take a
breather and reason this out, don’t you?” Talking might buy him some time and every second was precious. “You might think you have the FBI in your back pocket, but they aren’t the only game in town. Whether you kill Harper or not, you’re going to be under a lot of scrutiny, and an investigation, no matter how small, is going to ruin any plans you have. Don’t heap a murder charge onto your already very full plate.”

  “You know dick about my plate, so maybe you should lose your sidearm and shut the fuck up before I introduce Harper to the sidewalk.”

  True. Galen had told Harper that desperate men had nothing to lose. This guy was different, though. He wanted her out of the picture because he was holding on to something, not because he’d let it all go. “I’m putting down my weapon.” It went against every instinct to leave himself vulnerable, but he had to play to his opponent’s arrogance. He set his Glock down beside his right foot.

  “Kick it toward me.”

  Damn it. Galen extended his leg and nudged the gun several feet away. “I don’t think I got your name. I’m Deputy Galen Kelly.”

  He smirked. “Jason Meader. Soon to be Senator Jason Meader. They really ought to keep you deputies up on current events, you know.” Oh, yeah, this guy thought he was a big freaking deal.

  Galen shrugged. “I’ve been in France.”

  Meader gave him a caustic look. “Charming.”

  Monroe couldn’t be more than eight blocks away, and the Portland police and FBI wouldn’t be much farther behind. Galen needed just a moment of distraction to redirect his attention. If he could get Harper clear of the danger, Meader would be easy to take down. This time he took a chance and let his eyes find Harper’s. She’d been staring at him the entire time, and the fear reflected in the hazel orbs set off an explosion of rage inside of him. A tiny distraction. That’s all he needed. Just a second or two. Come on, Harper. You can do it.