Blaze

by Joan Swan

  And all thanks to Rostov and his whacked-out theory of how those chemicals would affect similar DNA patterns and children. The bastard’s crazed attack on Cash’s wife and son had almost exposed the entire system. If Jocelyn hadn’t orchestrated the cover-up and ultimately imprisoned Cash when his personal investigation had touched too close to the truth, the whole mission would have collapsed in the biggest scandal since Watergate.

  Now, she had to get the boy back and eliminate that possibility once again. This was really getting old.

  She shrugged her shoulders and tugged at the hem of her jacket to get the garment back into place, smoothing her free hand over the wrinkles Keira had creased into the front. She’d just had it dry-cleaned, too.

  “He is alive,” she said, forcing her composure back into place. Refocusing on her goal now that her curiosity had been sated. “He’s been working for us, but his usefulness is coming to an end. We can release him to you, or we can eliminate him. Your choice.”

  “Working for you?” Keira gave an absurd snort of laughter. “This is unbelievable.”

  Keira snapped the photo from her hand, a skeptical frown etching her forehead. But it didn’t take long for her expression to shift. Anger to shock. Shock to torment. Keira pressed a hand to the center of her chest as if her heart ached.

  Jocelyn had clearly won this battle. Maybe not the war— yet. But this battle was over. “Getting a little more from this one, are you?”

  Keira’s hand closed around the photograph before dropping to her side. “I don’t know what you think you’ll gain—”

  “The boy.” Jocelyn went in for the kill. “We’ll give you your brother if you give us the . . .” Scamp, brat, pain in the ass “. . . child. He has abilities that will be an invaluable asset to our military and ultimately our country. We want to help him grow and explore those abilities.”

  The only thing that enabled her to keep the grimace out of her voice was the knowledge the kid would be killed as soon as they gained custody. And his father would be eliminated as soon as he completed the experiment. Then all Jocelyn had left to get rid of was this damn team. That would be far trickier.

  “I assure you, Cash is alive. Take some time with that photograph, and you’ll know I’m telling you the truth. You’ll have to be the one to make the final decision as to whether or not you’re willing to sacrifice your only living relative for a little Greek orphan who means nothing to you.”

  Jocelyn strode to the door. Her loyal dogs followed. At the threshold, she paused with one hand on the doorframe and turned back toward Keira.

  “You have forty-eight hours to decide. Then your brother’s usefulness will have expired . . . and so will this deal.”

  “Dargan.” Keira’s voice brought her attention around one last time. The other woman’s eyes drilled into Jocelyn with as much ice and determination as any enemy she’d ever faced. “I suggest you stay away from those picture windows in your living room.”

  SIXTEEN

  Keira’s gaze blurred on the bright, crisp early afternoon sunlight spilling through the windshield as she waited for Luke. She sat in the passenger’s seat of Alyssa’s crossover looking down the quiet street where the SUVs carrying Dargan and her two thugs had disappeared ten minutes before.

  Damn spooks thought they could just walk into their lives, drop a bomb, issue ultimatums, and flounce out again. Screw them. Upside down and sideways. She’d get her brother back and she’d keep Mateo. She’d find a way.

  Just holding the photo of her brother sent a smooth, molten heat flowing through her, filling all the gaps, easing all the loneliness. God, she’d idolized him.

  But who was he now? Doubt edged in. Why would he go through life without contacting her? And was he truly working for her greatest enemy?

  She lifted the picture and studied the man. He was sitting on a stool in some type of lab, looking over his shoulder at the camera as if someone had called to gain his attention. Unlike the other man Dargan had tried to pass off as her brother, this one looked back at her. Touched her. Spoke to her.

  But it was her mother’s voice that invaded Keira’s mind. You good-for-nothing piece of shit. Look what you’ve done! You’ll pay for this, boy.

  A loud gong made Keira flinch. In her memory, she could still see her mother, face creased with wrinkles from a lifetime of smoking, dyed-blond hair hanging in stringy patches to her shoulders, grab the frying pan from the stove and whip it against Cash’s temple.

  The splash of liquid. The roar of flames. The crackle of wood.

  And Cash’s final scream. Run, Keira! Get out!

  She forced her eyes open, her mind back to the present.

  Luke trotted down the front steps, duffel bag in one hand, phone pressed to his ear in the other. The sight of him helped her refocus, and her heart squeezed.

  She ran a hand over her thigh, the jeans rubbing coarse against her fingers. Jeans of hers he still had in the depths of his closet. Along with a few other odds and ends she had forgotten when she’d packed for the academy.

  What are you doing with these? she’d asked after Dargan had left, and Luke had offered the pants for her to change into. After all this time?

  He’d shrugged. I guess I was hoping you’d come back for them.

  She hadn’t told him she still harbored a few of his shirts. That she still slept in them every night. She would have, it would have been the perfect moment, only she felt something shifting inside her. The news of her brother sent doors in her psyche slamming shut. She didn’t know why. Didn’t know how to stop it. Only felt herself splitting away from the bond she’d forged with Luke.

  It hurt. It frightened. And it was completely out of her control.

  Luke tossed his bag into the backseat, shut the door, and slid behind the steering wheel. “Yes, Cash Evan O’Shay.”

  Keira flinched at the sound of her brother’s full name. As Luke continued to impart information to Mitch, a familiar shell coated Keira’s insides, a protective reaction she’d developed as a child, one that prepared her for the inevitable shit storm about to hit.

  “I know he’s supposed to be dead.” Luke backed out of the driveway. “Check on that. We’ll explain when we get there.”

  When he disconnected, Keira said, “Drive slow, Luke. I need to think.”

  “You should have been thinking in there.” He tossed his phone on the dash and glared at her. “You just threatened a high-ranking federal employee. With witnesses who just happened to be federal law enforcement.” He jerked the car into drive and pounded the steering wheel. “Christ. You’re giving her exactly what she wants, Keira. Do you remember what happened the last time they had one of us on trial?”

  That hadn’t been the shit storm she’d been expecting.

  “Well what do you expect,” he said, “when you go and say things like ‘stay away from those picture windows in your living room’? God. Sometimes, Keira, you just fucking floor me.”

  So much for blocking him from her thoughts.

  She blew out a long breath and closed her eyes as Luke stopped at a light. Tears immediately stung the backs of her lids. The warmth and pressure of his hand on her knee gave her a fleeting taste of reassurance.

  “Hey,” he said, voice softer. She peeked at him from beneath her lashes. “Off the record, I’m damned impressed at the way you stood up to that bitch. Just don’t do it again. I swear I feel older by the minute.”

  She pressed her lips together and nodded, then blurted the questions she couldn’t hold back anymore. “Do you think Mateo really is my nephew?”

  “Facts are leading in that direction, babe.”

  She huffed a humorless laugh and shook her head. A hell of a lot more made sense now—her immediate feeling of connection to him, even before they met, that sense of familiarity when she looked into his face, the belief that Tony had been lying about Mateo’s origin, the sense of deceit rolling off Dargan trying to spin the same story.

  The responsibilities that w
ent along with the very real possibility that Mateo was her own flesh and blood made her dizzy. She leaned her head against the seat. If they didn’t find Cash, if they couldn’t reunite Cash and Mateo, she was going to have to choke down her fears and take the boy in, because he was her family.

  Yes, she’d considered the possibility, but now that possibility was almost a certainty. She had a freaking five-year-old nephew who didn’t speak a word of English.

  “And he’s the cutest thing since Elmo. And he thinks you walk on water.”

  Her head lolled toward Luke as the light turned and he continued through the golden aspens and towering pines lining the roads. Either her barriers were shrinking or his clairaudient abilities were growing. “Elmo is not cute.”

  Luke grinned, his white teeth glimmering, his cheek creasing into a deep crescent beneath the morning’s stubble. He hadn’t shaved in the shower, leaving him scruffy and so sexy. That profile was to die for.

  She had never loved anyone more. Never loved him more. And the split growing inside her was excruciating.

  “Can I see the photo?” he asked.

  She passed it across.

  “Well, the resemblance is definitely there,” Luke murmured, and set the photo in the middle console. He clenched his teeth until his jaw muscles rolled. “I think the best way to do this is to just spill it. Just start talking and don’t stop until it’s all out.”

  “There’s a limit on confessions in a twenty-four-hour period. I’m over mine.”

  “Save the drama.”

  Jeez, she didn’t know where to start.

  “Start with the fire,” Luke said.

  “Stop reading my thoughts.”

  “You’re projecting.”

  “Smartass.”

  Keira’s mind was a jumble of events and emotions, of people and places and circumstance.

  “The fire was my fault,” she said. “My mom left me home while she went out to the bar. I was hungry, tried to cook something for myself. I don’t even remember what, bacon and eggs I think, because whatever it was involved grease.

  “The grease caught fire, and I was trying to put it out when Cash came home from his job. Some type of fast food place, I think. Right after that our mother showed up. She was drunk—as usual—and when she saw the fire, she lost it. Just freaked out. Cash took the blame and said that he’d started it. Our mom, God, I can still see it. She picked up the frying pan and hit Cash in the head. The grease must have spread, because a second later flames were everywhere, all across the kitchen, dotting Cash’s jeans. All I remember after that was Cash screaming for me to run, get out of the house. So I ran. Didn’t wait for him. Didn’t look for my mother. I just ran.”

  She remembered the firefighters outside the house. How one had swept her up in his arms and jogged with her across the lawn, setting her on the step of his fire truck to check her over. She wouldn’t recognize him now, but she’d never forget the depth of concern in his eyes, an emotion no one had ever shown for her but Cash, and one that had touched her deeply.

  That one look had been the impetus for her quest into the fire service.

  “The days after that are a blur. The police took me away. I remember sitting in the corner of a dark room at some type of child services facility, and all I could think about was how they were going to take me to jail and I’d never see Cash again. And when they came the next morning, they did tell me I’d never see Cash again, only they told me it was because he’d died in the fire.”

  Keira numbed out. If she didn’t, she’d short-circuit.

  “Honestly, after they told me Cash was dead, my memory blacks out. I don’t have anything more than spotty recollections about my life until a couple years later. And all that is just foster home after foster home until I landed with one couple who mined my value until I turned eighteen. None of which I want to talk about now.”

  Keira focused on the quaint shops lining Truckee’s touristy downtown.

  “You were five years old?” Luke said.

  “Yes.”

  “And your mother left you alone? With nothing to eat?”

  She rubbed her eyes. “Yes.”

  From the corner of her eye, she saw Luke’s hand squeeze the steering wheel. “So, what Dargan said, about the death certificate, the proof... About Cash not actually dying in the fire . . . ?”

  “It’s true. I never had any proof. By the time I was old enough to understand that things hadn’t been followed up, I didn’t see a point in asking for proof. I believed he was dead. I couldn’t imagine why anyone would lie. Why he would fake it. The possibility never entered my mind. All it would have done was force me to relive the terror. I just wanted to move on. To find purpose. To do something with my life that up until that point had seemed so pointless.

  “Where has he been for twenty-five years? Why didn’t he come find me? Why didn’t he tell me he was alive?” She turned a burning gaze on Luke. “I’ve spent my whole damned life believing I was responsible for his death. Do you have any idea how much . . . how much . . . ?”

  “Trauma . . . ?” Luke supplied.

  The memory of his sister’s suicide and the guilt he’d self-inflicted over not seeing her troubles took the heat out of Keira’s anger. They’d both suffered in such similar ways over the course of their lives. How could she turn out so screwed up and he turn out so . . . damn perfect?

  “Hardly perfect.” He shot her a quirky grin. “I’m pretty sure you were screaming about that yesterday at the airport. And I had a complete Leave It to Beaver childhood. Don’t keep beating yourself up over things you can’t control.”

  “I was not screaming. I don’t scream.”

  Luke laughed, low and throaty, rubbed a hand over his mouth, and slid a hot look her way. “Uh, yeah, baby. You do.”

  “Shut up.” Heat infused her face. She smacked his arm. “And she said he worked for them. Does that mean he’s involved in all this? That he knows what I—what we’ve—gone through, yet allowed it?”

  “She also said his ‘usefulness is coming to an end’ and talked about ‘releasing him’ or ‘terminating him.’ Mateo told us his father was ‘trying to get free.’ That doesn’t sound like employment to me. It sounds like incarceration. Consider the source.” He pushed the photo toward her. “Wouldn’t you rather trust your own information?”

  She looked at the picture of her brother, alive and well. Pain swelled in her chest until she was sure she would crack. She needed a break before she tried to read that photo again.

  “I need to call Angus.” She reached for his phone on the dash. “Can I use your phone?”

  He nodded and she dialed her boss’s cell.

  “Special Agent West,” he answered.

  His familiar voice lit off fireworks of emotion. She really liked Angus. Enjoyed working with and for him. And the thought that he was one of them turned her inside out.

  “Hey, Angus—” She cleared her throat, trying to sound . . . normal, although she didn’t know what normal was anymore. “It’s Keira.”

  An extended silence followed. Sickness rolled in her belly as she tried to hold on to denial.

  “Well.” His voice was tight. Curt. “You sure made a mess of things, didn’t you?”

  Ah, damn.

  Disillusionment stung deep.

  “Sir?” She’d play dumb as far as it would take her.

  “That whole fiasco with Tony.”

  “I’m . . . not clear . . .”

  “It really doesn’t matter now. It’s over.” His voice lightened just enough to confuse Keira. “Call me an overprotective father figure, but you could do so much better.”

  “Um . . . thank you. I think.”

  “You can thank me by telling me you’re not resigning.”

  “Re—? What?”

  “Tony I was happy to get rid of, but you’re going to have to come in and look me in the eye—”

  “Tony Esposito?” she clarified.

  “Do you know of another Tony
in this office?”

  She couldn’t get her mind to fit the pieces together. “I’m sorry, sir, I’m confused. Are you saying Tony resigned? By letter? When?”

  “It came by courier today. I thought you would know,” he drawled, “considering one of the reasons he cited was a failed relationship with you, which he acknowledged was inappropriate behavior considering it’s against protocol.”

  The last words were nearly yelled across the line. Keira winced and pulled the phone from her ear. Interdepartmental relationships were a big no-no. But since she hadn’t been in a relationship with Tony and since dead men couldn’t write resignation letters, this had to be DARPA’s attempt at undermining her position with the FBI. Which was, ironically, a huge relief, because it meant Angus wasn’t one of them.

  “Uh, sir. That . . . if I can be candid . . . is horse shit. Tony and I were never involved.” She felt like a broken record. How many times would she have to deny this relationship? “And I don’t have any intentions of . . .”

  I’d be very happy with one. Boy or girl. Now or later.

  Oh, shit.

  Her two worlds collided. Again.

  “Keira?”

  “Yeah. So, I was calling to ask for a few days off.” The faster she could get off this subject, the better. “I’m still pretty sore from the rescue.”

  “Sure.” He sounded a little bewildered now. “But you’re coming back, right?”

  She hesitated. Struggled. Then finally answered, “Of course. I’ll call you in a few days.”

  Luke held his tongue as he guided the SUV through the gates to Teague and Alyssa’s property, pulled open by the same two fatigue-clad, subgun-toting men he’d jogged by that morning on his way out.

  His stomach burned as images of Keira’s childhood swirled in his head. Every time she opened her mouth to talk about her past, something shocking fell out. It was no wonder the hell she’d lived through—so much darker than he’d imagined—had instilled a fear of motherhood, tainted her view of family, left her untrusting and guarded.