Cinderella's Secret Agent

by Ingrid Weaver

“All right,” Del said. “Tell me what you want.”

  Simon’s scarred cheeks deepened into a hideous smile. “Excellent. I want you to arrange a meeting. Just Jonah and me. Man to man. Think you can do that?”

  “Yes,” Del said, not letting any of his doubts show. He couldn’t guarantee Jonah’s appearance. No one could. “I can do that, but only if you let the woman and child go. I’ll take their place as your hostage.”

  “Don’t try my patience. We’ve already gone over this, and that’s not how it works. You stay put. They come with me. I will call here in exactly one hour to tell you where and when the trade will take place. You follow my instructions to the letter, and no tricks, or I won’t hesitate to kill these two.” Simon moved his hand down to grasp Maggie’s arm and stood up from the couch. “Come on, woman. On your feet.”

  Tears brimmed in Maggie’s eyes. She pressed her lips together and shuffled in front of Simon as he guided her forward.

  Del felt a damp heat building behind his eyes. Seeing Maggie’s strength in the face of Simon’s evil, seeing her fierce love for her child, made Del’s admiration for her deepen with every panting breath he watched her take. He had never felt more in love…or more helpless.

  He wanted to hold her, to love her, to tell her all his secrets and make all the promises he had been hiding inside for so long. He had already wasted so much time. What if it was too late?

  But he couldn’t afford to let his emotions loose now. If he did, they would all die.

  Maggie was dry-eyed as she steered the taxi through the deserted streets. Sometime in the past hour, her tears had stopped. Not because they were used up. Oh, no. The urge to cry was still there, tangled with the urge to scream and the urge to twist in her seat and scratch out the eyes of the man who held her baby.

  Yet somehow, she was keeping all that under control. She felt as if a hard, distant mask had come down over her features, the same way she had seen it happen with Del.

  I’m not the man you think I am.

  What kind of criminal activity was he mixed up in? Was this what he had been hiding? Did the business he’d never wanted to talk about involve dealing with men like this…this monster beside her?

  This man was no mugger who had chosen her apartment building at random. This man knew Del. And Del had brought him into her life.

  Why? How? Was Del a member of some rival criminal gang? Was he a cop? But if he was on the side of the police, wouldn’t he have a badge and a gun? Wouldn’t he have been able to tell her? And who was this Jonah character?

  She wished she had never met Del Rogers. She wished she had never loved him. She had known he would be trouble, but she’d never dreamed in her worst nightmares that it could have led to this. Her safe, ordinary life had suddenly become filled with guns, violence and the threat of death. She should hate him for what was happening.

  But she couldn’t hate him. She loved him. He had tried to defend her. He had offered himself in her place. He had promised her she would be all right.

  But he had been hurt. He had barely been able to stand. She had seen a dark red stain spreading over the sling that held his arm. If only she hadn’t kept him standing out in the hall so long…

  But if she hadn’t let him in, none of this would be happening.

  An involuntary sob escaped her throat. She couldn’t think about Del now. She couldn’t indulge in self-recriminations or questions with no answers. All she could do was survive.

  “Pull in over there,” the man instructed, pointing toward a darkened pharmacy.

  Maggie caught her lower lip between her teeth and did as he said. She didn’t question his order. She had seen what he had done to the innocent driver of this cab he had car jacked. The cabby had probably been lured into stopping because he’d seen Maggie and Delilah, but he’d ended up being pistol-whipped and dumped bloody and unconscious in an alley.

  This man called Simon was ruthless. He would stop at nothing.

  What on earth was his connection to Del?

  “Come with me,” he said, shifting Delilah to his shoulder.

  Maggie had no choice. She went.

  The pharmacy was closed, its door locked, but that made no difference to Simon. He smashed the glass with the butt of his gun, opened the door, pushed Maggie inside and strode in after her. As they moved, she scanned the shelves, looking for something, anything, she could use as a weapon. Would hairspray in the face blind him? Would a bottle of cough syrup shatter over his head? If this place had a silent alarm that would bring the police, could she delay him long enough for help to arrive?

  But even if she found a weapon, even if the police came, it wouldn’t be any use. Not as long as this monster still had her baby. “What are you looking for?” she asked. “Do you need drugs? Is that why—”

  “Shut up,” he muttered. He stopped in front of the headache remedies, grabbed several bottles and stuffed them in the pockets of his jacket before ushering her back to the stolen cab. Then he shook out four aspirin tablets into his palm and tossed them into his mouth. Swallowing them dry, he told Maggie to drive on.

  Aspirin? she thought, feeling a bubble of hysteria rise to her lips. He had broken into a pharmacy because he had a headache?

  Delilah let out a sudden sob, and Maggie caught her breath. Until now, Delilah had been mercifully subdued, too confused and weary to raise much of a fuss at being handled by this strange man. How would he react if she started crying in earnest?

  She eased her foot off the gas. “Please, let me take her. I won’t go anywhere, I promise, just let me—”

  “Keep driving,” he said, over Delilah’s building sobs. He muttered a curse, then shifted the baby to his other shoulder, bouncing her up and down until her sobs abated.

  His matter-of-fact ease with the baby startled Maggie. How could a monster like this know how to calm a fussy infant? Could there be some core of humanity in him, after all? If she could reach it, maybe there was a chance. She glanced sideways. “Thank you.”

  “What for?”

  “For calming down my baby. You must have done that kind of thing before.”

  He turned to stare at her. “That’s right.”

  His gaze was so cold, so flat and lifeless, it made her shiver. She must be nuts to hope she could reach him, but she had to try. “Uh, do you have children, Mr. Simon?”

  “Yes.”

  All right, she told herself, taking a steadying breath. This was good. It was almost a normal conversation. “A boy or a girl?” she asked, trying to sound casual despite her racing pulse.

  He continued to watch her, his gaze unfathomable. “I have a daughter.”

  Hope, swift and desperate, sparked in her heart. “Then we have something in common. You wouldn’t really want to hurt my baby, would you?”

  “Why not?” he asked, his tone disinterested.

  Her stomach was in knots. The urge to scream was building again. She swallowed hard. “Think of your own daughter.”

  He merely looked at her, like a snake sizing up its prey.

  She persevered. “You’re a parent. How would you feel if someone shot—”

  He laughed. The sound was so evil, it made her teeth chatter.

  “Don’t underestimate my determination, Maggie,” he said finally. “It is Maggie, isn’t it?”

  She clenched her jaw and nodded.

  “I know precisely how I would feel if someone shot my daughter.” He gave her a smile that wasn’t quite sane. “You see, I shot her myself.”

  Terror unlike anything Maggie had felt in her life knifed through her heart.

  Oh, Del, she thought. You promised it would be all right. Please, please, don’t let that be another one of your lies.

  Chapter 14

  Exactly one hour and twelve seconds after Simon had walked into the night with everything Del loved most in the world, Maggie’s phone began to ring.

  The room that was usually cluttered with baby paraphernalia—and only a few hours ago had been filled
with candlelight and soft music—held grim-faced men and women intent on their duties. A recorder clicked on. The screen of a computer hooked to the phone line glowed in readiness. The SPEAR agent who had been monitoring the equipment at the surveillance site earlier pressed her headphones to her ears and mumbled something into her mike. Bill nodded and pointed his finger at Del.

  Del snatched up the receiver before his partner had a chance to complete the motion. “Rogers,” he said.

  Simon didn’t waste time with small talk. “Can you give me Jonah?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Del replied. “He’s on his way to New York.”

  Del was still absorbing the fact that his statement wasn’t a lie. One working arm or not, he had been prepared to go down to Washington and take apart SPEAR headquarters brick by brick until he found Jonah. He had been willing to do whatever it took to convince the head of SPEAR to play along with Simon in order to prolong Maggie’s life. At least for another hour.

  Yet Del hadn’t needed to do more than repeat Simon’s demands. After the cat-and-mouse game of the past year, Jonah was as ready to end this as anyone. The head of SPEAR had agreed to Simon’s request for a face-to-face meeting, even knowing full well that Simon planned to kill him.

  Logically, Simon couldn’t succeed with his planned assassination. His accomplices were in custody. He would be outmanned and outgunned.

  But as long as he had Maggie and Delilah, he held the trump card.

  The computer screen flashed a map of the Lower East Side. Bill cupped his hand around his mouth and spoke quietly into his cell phone, dispatching agents to the area until the signal from Simon’s phone could be pinpointed. He made a gesture to Del to keep talking.

  Even without his partner’s instruction, Del had no intention of hanging up yet. “Let me talk to your hostage,” he said.

  “Agreed,” Simon said.

  There was a muffled clunk as the phone changed hands. “Del?”

  At Maggie’s voice, Del’s eyes prickled with the tears he had kept at bay. She had always sounded so energetic and full of life. He barely recognized the small, terrified voice as hers. “Maggie, are you all right?”

  “Yes, yes I’m okay.” There was a cranky sob in the background. “So’s Delilah. Oh, Del,” she said, her voice cracking. “I’m scared.”

  “Hang in there, Maggie. You’re going to be all right,” he said, praying it was true. “I won’t let anything happen to either of you.”

  She was silent. Del didn’t know whether it was because she didn’t believe him or because Simon snatched the phone away before she had the chance to respond.

  As the recording equipment whirred and the computer screen flashed, Simon revealed the rest of his demands in a tone that was as hollow as a tomb. The rendezvous was to take place in thirty minutes in a deserted lot beside the East River. Simon would bring his hostages, and Jonah was to come alone, with one exception. Simon wanted Del to be waiting, unarmed, in plain sight, to handle the trade.

  As soon as the connection was terminated, the agent monitoring the tracing equipment shook her head. “Simon’s using a cellular and he’s in motion. I couldn’t get a fix on his position.”

  Bill strode over to grasp Del’s shoulder. “Don’t meet Simon unarmed, Del,” he said. “You can’t do what he says.”

  Del shook off his hand. “I have to. I brought Maggie into this, I’ll get her out. We’ll put marksmen around the perimeter. We’ll station chase boats on the river.”

  “But you can barely stay on your feet.”

  “The medic gave me a shot of amphetamines when she rebandaged my arm. That should see me through.”

  “Del, don’t you understand? Simon doesn’t need you there to handle the trade for the hostages. He knows you’re the one who shot him. He wants you there because he plans to kill you,” Bill said bluntly.

  Del slipped his arm out of its sling, gritting his teeth against the stab of pain as he tested his range of movement. “I know, Bill. He plans to kill us all.”

  The bright yellow paint on the hood of the taxi gleamed like mustard as the cab passed under the last streetlight. The nearby buildings appeared to have been abandoned long ago, their windows boarded up, their crumbling brick walls covered with spray-painted graffiti. Broken chunks of concrete, all that was left of another structure’s foundation, lay in lumps across the ground. Maggie slowed as darkness loomed in front of her.

  “Keep going,” Simon ordered.

  Tightening her grip on the wheel, Maggie steered around the obstacles and into the darkness. Through the window, she caught the rotting, metallic tang of dampness. They must be nearing the East River, she thought. Oh, God. What if this madman intended to make her keep on driving until they went in?

  Suddenly, a figure appeared in her headlights. Maggie put on the brakes, her heart thumping painfully.

  It was Del. Silhouetted against the night, he looked solid and eerily still. His body was rigid, his feet braced apart. His face could have been carved from pale stone as he stared straight at them.

  Simon chuckled. “Excellent,” he said. He lifted his gun from Delilah’s side briefly to gesture toward a point to Del’s left. “Pull up over there.”

  For an instant, Maggie didn’t move, letting the sight of Del flow over her like a comforting embrace. He was here. He would help her end this nightmare.

  But he was the one who had involved her in this nightmare….

  “Go on. Do it.”

  Maggie drove. Ten yards later, the headlights illuminated a low cement wall. Beyond it was the black swath of the river and the glittering lights of Brooklyn. At Simon’s direction, she turned the cab until it pointed back the way they had come. As the lights swung around, Del pivoted to face them.

  Simon made her get out first. Keeping the bulk of the cab at his back, he positioned Maggie in front of him and handed her Delilah.

  The relief that surged through her at having her daughter in her arms once more was short-lived. Simon wasn’t letting her go. He was using them both for a shield.

  “Where’s Jonah?” Simon shouted.

  “He’ll be here,” Del replied.

  Simon hooked his arm around Maggie’s neck, pressing her back into his chest. “We had a deal, Rogers.”

  “Yes, we did. You said thirty minutes. It’s only been twenty-nine.”

  Maggie went up on her tiptoes to ease the pressure on her throat. “Please,” she said. “Let us go. You’ll get what you wanted—”

  “Shut up,” Simon said. “You don’t know what I want.”

  “Your argument is with this Jonah person. You don’t need me or my baby. Just let us—” Her words were cut off when she felt the muzzle of the gun press into the skin beneath her ear.

  “Don’t hurt her, Simon,” Del said. His voice was as cold as the breeze that blew off the river. “I’ve done what you asked. Jonah is on his way.”

  “If he isn’t, she has thirty seconds to live.”

  “He’ll be here.”

  “Twenty-five seconds.”

  “Don’t do it, Simon.”

  “Fine, I won’t. I’ll start with the kid,” Simon said, tipping the gun to point at Delilah.

  “Stop!” Del yelled. He stripped off his windbreaker and tossed it behind him. His shirt followed. Bare to the waist apart from the white bandage on his upper arm, he lifted his hands over his head and took a step forward. “If Jonah doesn’t come, then shoot me first.”

  Maggie hadn’t thought she could feel more terror than what was already freezing her veins, but she’d been wrong. Seeing Del offer himself to this madman sent her fear to another level altogether. And she had been wrong to think her tears had dried up. They flowed hot and fast down her cheeks. The pounding of her pulse in her ears grew louder until the breeze from the river turned into a whirlwind—

  Suddenly, Maggie realized it wasn’t only her pulse she heard—it was the quiet, rhythmic throb of an engine. There was a blur of movement from the darkness of the river.
The gusts increased until she could barely draw a breath. She turned Delilah to her breast to shelter her and squinted into the wind.

  Like a phantom out of science fiction, a large machine lifted silently over the wall. It hovered there in space, all awkward angles and dull black metal while the air swirled wildly around them. It took a second for Maggie to realize what she was seeing. It was a helicopter.

  Del widened his stance to hold himself steady against the push of the rotor backwash. The stealth helicopter had come in low and fast, hugging the surface of the river. Its angular design and nonreflective coating made it invisible to radar, while the night made it invisible to the eye. The special shielding on its engines permitted no more than a whisper of sound to escape. It was the perfect craft to serve as transportation for a reclusive legend like Jonah.

  If only it would prove to be equally good as a distraction.

  Del flicked his gaze to the rooftops on either side of him. Although they’d had to scramble to find good vantage points in the limited time window allowed, SPEAR agents had placed themselves at strategic positions around the perimeter of the meeting site. The plan wasn’t fancy. It was simple and straightforward. There was no need to wait to gather more evidence, no need to wait for a signal. At the first opportunity, they were to take Simon out.

  But Simon wasn’t making it easy. He refused to be distracted. The spectacular arrival of the helicopter hadn’t made him lift his gun away from Maggie. Neither had Del’s attempt to offer himself as a target.

  The pea-size receiver in Del’s ear hissed. “No clear shot. I repeat, no clear shot.”

  Del tongued the microtransmitter that was taped to his lip. “Don’t try for perfect. Just do the job.”

  “The hostage is in the line of fire.”

  Despite the cold air that whipped over his skin, Del felt sweat trickle down his temple. While the other SPEAR marksmen were exceptionally skilled, their expertise couldn’t come close to Del’s. He knew that if he had been on one of those rooftops, he would have been able to find a target. All he needed was one square inch, a dime-size chink in Simon’s human shield.