She’d survived terrible things.
Trina said, “The flash drive, or he dies.” She jerked Lewis again.
The boy’s terrorized, tear-filled eyes bored into her. “She hit my mom.”
“I wouldn’t have had to if she hadn’t fought me.” Trina said, “Just give me what I want.”
“Let the kid go.” Zander sounded as calm as Kaylee had, only his was real. Cool and collected. “And I’ll consider not killing you.” And lethal.
Kaylee saw Lewis’s reaction. She mouthed, “It’s okay.”
Zander was closer now. Kaylee moved as well. Both of them, closing in on Trina and Lewis. Was she really going to hurt him? Who would do that to a child?
Kaylee continued distracting Trina so Zander could do what he needed to, “Why are you doing this? You work at a bank. You’re not a child murderer.” She paused only a split second before adding, “That’s what this will be. And then you’ll go to jail for the rest of your life.”
“Not if I get that flash drive first.” She waved the gun. “Now give it to me. I know you got it from the little library.”
Kaylee wished she was close enough to grab a book from it. She’d have literally thrown the book at her former friend. Lewis was going to be scarred for life by this. Kind of like the way Kaylee had been. And Trina didn’t care at all.
She didn’t get it.
“Let him go.” Kaylee tried to sound strong and unafraid.
Her friend’s attention shifted a fraction, and Zander made his move. Kaylee did the same, aiming for Lewis.
Zander slammed into Trina, grabbing her wrist of the hand that held the gun. Kaylee saw the second Trina let go of her hold on Lewis and reached her arms out to him. He slammed into her like he’d just escaped the clutches of a bear.
She heard Zander grunt and saw that Trina had scratched his face.
He seemed surprised for a second and then twisted her arm and rolled her to her front. He pulled the arm back behind her and slapped on a pair of cuffs from the back of his belt. Then he sat back on his heels. “Yeesh, where did you find this woman?”
“She’s supposed to be my friend.” Kaylee turned to Lewis. “Let’s go see to your mom, okay? We can call an ambulance, and they’ll check her out.”
Lewis nodded.
“Some friend,” Zander muttered.
“I know, okay? I made a bad choice. You think I have poor judgment. I’m doing the best I can.”
He hauled Trina to her feet and something around her neck glinted. Kaylee turned to Lewis. “Go inside. Call 9-1-1, and I’ll be there in one second.”
As soon as he raced away, she closed in on Trina and lifted the necklace from the collar of her blouse. “This belongs to someone else.”
“Whatever. Finders keepers.”
Kaylee wanted to be sick. “Who are you?”
“Anyone I wanna be.” But her bravado slipped, and Kaylee saw what looked like genuine fear in her eyes. She wasn’t going to fall for it, though. Not if it was a ruse.
“I have to go help Lewis.” Kaylee glanced at Zander and took a step away. “You’re good?”
Zander’s eyebrow rose. “I’m thinking, yeah. I can handle her.”
She wanted to warn him to not be cocky, but Trina said, “You have to help me, Kaylee. He’ll kill me. I didn’t succeed.”
She walked away.
“Kaylee, he’ll kill me!”
Twenty-one
Dean jumped out of the car first. Stuart needed a second. The street was filled with police vehicles, even an ambulance. Zander stood in the center, holding onto a cuffed Trina.
Dean went inside the house where they’d been told Kaylee was with a kid and his mom. An officer took Trina from Zander and started to walk her to a police car. Stuart went to Zander who was talking to the sergeant.
What he wanted to do was go inside so he could see Kaylee, but the thought of getting rejected again held him back. Kaylee wanted “space,” and that was exactly what he would give her. The kind of man he wanted to be didn’t do whatever he wanted against a woman’s wishes. Stuart had to respect her choice.
But then, the man he’d always been knew that protecting her ranked higher in priority than her need for that “space” she’d asked for. The covert agent would haul her off to a safe house and set up a way to take down the threat. She didn’t need to be happy about it. She would be alive enough, and she’d realize later it had been the best course of action and then forgive him.
Stuart’s conversation with the sergeant broke off as he approached, and he lifted a brow. What had they been talking about that they didn’t want him to hear or be a part of?
“Stuart!” Trina’s shrill voice drew all their attention.
He turned to her, his mind still full of Kaylee. And the two men. People weren’t his strong suit.
“Help me, please! I can’t go to jail!”
Zander said, “You should’ve thought of that before you committed multiple crimes.” He glanced at Stuart. “Just so you know, you’re the fourth person she’s tried appealing to.”
“Good to know.” Stuart folded his arms, holding back the wince. His entire body ached despite the dose of pain meds Dean had insisted he take—not the ones that made him drowsy. Unfortunately, that left the ones that made him nauseous.
“I won’t survive jail!”
Stuart glanced at Zander, who shrugged. Then Stuart said, “US prisons aren’t that bad. I’ve been incarcerated in France and Russia. Serving time here would be a cakewalk compared to either one of them.”
Basuto stared at him.
“Russia?” Trina shook her head. “My Dad is Russian.” She switched to the language and said, “He taught me everything I know. How to hide. How to kill.”
Basuto glanced between them. “You understand that.”
Stuart nodded. As for Zander, he wasn’t sure if the man spoke Russian, though he did speak several other languages. Stuart used Russian to ask Trina, “Why should that make me consider you any differently? You threatened to take away my ability to walk, all to force your own way and make Kaylee give you the flash drive.”
“He made me do it.” She scrunched up her face, and he wondered if she was trying to get tears to fall. “It was all his idea!”
Stuart turned to Basuto. “You should probably call a translator. Since Trina is Russian and all.” He resisted the urge to grin—that was how unseriously he was taking her. He could translate, sure, but he was also far too close to all of this to be beyond reproach. Especially considering all this would likely end up in court.
Stuart didn’t know if he would live that long.
The sergeant lifted his chin. “Get her back to holding.”
Donaldson led Trina away while she flailed and screeched. “I can get you in contact with the team that’s coming to town! I can hand them over to you. I know who they are.”
Zander made a disparaging noise in his throat but said nothing.
Basuto called out, “The DA is the one who will make any deals. That’s not my purview. If it was, you’d get nothing. Terrorizing a kid?” He shook his head. “No. I don’t think so.”
The officer got her in the backseat and shut the car door. Her wailing was still audible, but now at least Stuart could think.
Basuto tipped his head in her direction. “What did she say, when she was speaking Russian?”
Stuart told the sergeant, “Her father taught her how to kill. He put her up to it.” His tone gave away how he felt about that.
People should own up to responsibility for their actions. Not seek to drag others down, or blame them. No one had been here, forcing Trina to do this. She hadn’t been coerced, and she wasn’t under duress.
So exactly how much weight was her defense supposed to have?
“That’s interesting,” Basuto said. “Considering he’s saying it was all her idea.” He shook his head, a sardonic expression on his face. “That’s why we had to hold onto him until we found her. Now we can sit
them both down and unpack it all. We’ll finally be able to get to the bottom of this.”
Zander said, “You might want to ask her about that missing girl, the cold case Kaylee has been reading about.”
Basuto shook his head. “Why?”
“Something Kaylee noticed about Trina’s necklace.”
The sergeant said, “Copy that.” He took a step back. “You guys are good?”
They both nodded. Basuto trotted away.
“Go inside and see her.”
Stuart opened his mouth. Zander cut him off before he could say anything. “She asked me to go with her because of you.” He lifted a hand. “Because you respect and trust me enough with her life.” Zander flashed a grin.
Stuart shook his head. “Trina seriously held a gun to her again?”
“And threatened to shoot a kid.”
He couldn’t believe it. “There’s no way she’s Russian, right? And isn’t that one giant distraction from the real point here? That someone betrayed Brad and me, leading to our capture. What do I care about crazy Trina and what she might have done?”
“We’re almost out of the woods, right?” Zander pulled a tiny manila envelope from his pocket, tore it open, and dumped the contents into his palm.
“That is tiny.”
The flash drive was almost flat and so small he’d be scared to push it into the USB port on a computer. Too much force and the thing would be snapped in half.
Zander offered it up.
Stuart’s fingers twitched. That one thing contained all the answers. “We need to get it into a computer and get the password in. Brad is as bad as Ted, so there’s probably a failsafe of some kind. You know? Like, don’t put the password in correctly within a minute and the whole thing wipes.”
Zander winced.
“Hold onto it. Take it back to the house with you.”
Stuart had surprised his friend. His roommate. He wasn’t sure what exactly they were. But he did know that the important thing here was that they were all vulnerable until this was done. There were men, in town and probably more on the way, gunning for them. That meant if Stuart had the device, then he was doubly vulnerable.
“Designated survivor style?”
He nodded. “If they get both me and the flash drive, then I’m worth nothing.” Trina had tried to use their lives as leverage to get her hands on it. “They won’t kill me if I can’t hand them everything they want.”
“Copy that.”
“Check in. Frequently.”
Zander nodded. They shook hands, and the team leader strode back to his car. When Stuart turned to the house, he saw Dean walk out. He was followed by two EMTs carrying a woman on a stretcher. Behind them, Kaylee and a tween boy walked out. The boy looked shell shocked.
Stuart hung back while mother and son were loaded into the waiting ambulance.
Dean slapped him on the back of the shoulder as he passed.
The ambulance doors were slammed shut, and Kaylee turned. Relief washed over her face at the realization he stood not far from her. She rushed toward him. Stuart opened his arms at the last second, and she slammed into him.
He wrapped his arms around her. “Kaylee.” He crooned her name as he held her, then used nonsense words until she could inhale without the hitch in the middle. When she relaxed against him, not so tense, he said, “You did it. We got the flash drive with no loss of life.”
“This isn’t over though, is it?”
“No. But we can do it one step at a time. Together.”
She stared up at him. “I’d like that. I’m sorry I left.”
“It’s been intense, and I haven’t been at my best.” Stuart needed to get rid of the giant elephant out here on the street with them. “You don’t need to deal with my problems. It’s not fair to drag you down while I’m trying to get past them.”
He wasn’t sure he ever would.
“I know you didn’t mean to hurt me. You never would have done that if you’d been aware of what you were doing.”
“It was still my eyes looking at you while I had my hand around your throat.”
That was why he wasn’t going to make her try to figure out how to live with him. She needed full disclosure of what she would be getting herself into. There was work for him to do before he was fit to be in a relationship. Except that now was not the time to do that because his attention needed to instead be on exposing whoever betrayed them. He needed to bring the person to justice once and for all.
Then there was Brad. Stuart was intent on finding his friend. To finally know the truth of what had happened.
She reached up and touched his cheek. “I forgive you. If you’ll forgive me for running out.”
He shook his head, gave her a squeeze, and let her go. “Those are nothing alike. You don’t need my forgiveness, Kaylee. You’ve been great this whole time. I’m sorry Brad even dragged you into this, and that your life was turned upside down.”
“It’s been interesting, for sure.” She ran a hand through her dark hair. “I know now that I’m far more capable of withstanding fear than I thought. I figured I’d have shut down and been catatonic or something. But I wasn’t.”
Stuart pressed his lips together. He nodded, acting like he was glad she realized that. The truth was, he’d rather she never experienced it in the first place. No way did she need to have gone through that. He was so proud of her that she’d not only done it but had found the positive in the midst of it.
“This isn’t over, is it?”
Stuart shook his head. “You can stay here, safe, but I have two more things to do. Find Brad. Get the flash drive in the right hands.”
“Who do you think betrayed you guys? Was it the people you worked for?”
He shrugged one shoulder and took her hand so they could walk to Dean’s car where he was waiting for them. “It’s possible. There’s no love lost. Assets are valuable, and then they’re scraped off. We outlived our usefulness, I guess.”
“So they destroy you?”
“It kills our credibility. We were already suspect, given our backgrounds. They only hire renegades. Not the usual Ivy Leaguers the CIA comes up with.” Stuart reached for the door handle. “They can discredit anything I say now, even if I do come up with the truth. No one will believe a broken man. Especially if I have no evidence.”
“But we do. Right?” She looked so hopeful, it was hard to argue. “We have the flash drive.”
Stuart didn’t know about, “we,” but she was right. He nodded. “I’ll get this done. You don’t have to worry.”
He pulled the door open and held it for her.
The steady whomp-whomp of helicopter rotors caught his attention. He spun around. Oh, no. That wasn’t good.
“Get in.”
She scrambled inside.
Stuart climbed in beside her and told Dean, “Drive.”
The last thing he needed was to be caught out in the open when he wasn’t ready to face them.
Stuart was going to finish this his way.
Twenty-two
Kaylee scooted far enough over she could see out the window on the far side. She peered out at the sky as the helicopter dipped low.
Dean ducked in the driver’s seat. “Whoa, guys.”
Whether or not he thought the helicopter pilot could hear him, or not, Kaylee still agreed with him. “They’re flying way too low.”
Sure enough, the bottom of the helicopter rails looked close enough to nearly clip the roof of a house.
The noise was deafening. The steady whomp of rotors continued as it slowed and rotated.
“We should get out of here.” Stuart shut the door on his side. He’d gotten in the back with her instead of in the front passenger seat. “We don’t know what they’re going to do.”
“No.” Dean shook his head. “We’re going to stick around. Make sure no one is hurt, and see what they’re going to do.”
Stuart made a noncommittal noise in response but didn’t argue. Kaylee just st
ared out the window as the chopper, black and sleek and flashy looking, turned in a circle. She spotted a pilot, another guy in the front, and more than one person in the back. Most of them were dressed in black with helmets and wicked-looking, huge guns. Except for one guy in a dark blue jacket and jeans, his back to them.
Kaylee said, “Where’s the flash drive?”
“Zander took it.”
“Okay. That’s good.” It should by all accounts be far from both her and Stuart. That way, if something happened and they were taken, these guys wouldn’t get their hands on the evidence as well. “Who are they? They don’t exactly look friendly.”
“They’re not.” Stuart sounded like he had to bite the words out. “I recognize the chopper. They work for the same company, which means it’s my employers trying to find us and the evidence Brad discovered.”
Kaylee squinted. “Brad.”
“What?”
The man in blue started to fall. Kaylee’s breath caught in her throat. The wind roared through her ears as she watched.
He tumbled end over end, out of the helicopter, and onto the grass. His body hit the ground. He bounced once and tumbled over in a heap.
“Kaylee!”
She was out of the car.
Her feet tripped over each other. She fell to her knees, catching herself by her hands on the asphalt of the street. Her breath came in gasps. Finally, she managed to take a whole breath and screamed, “Brad!”
She raced toward him.
“Kaylee, get down!”
She ignored Stuart and pumped her arms and legs as fast as she could. Finally, blessedly, she reached his side.
Gunshots smacked the grass around her, kicking up dirt. She screamed and threw her body over her brother’s, covering his torso and head. Was he even alive?
Had they thrown his dead body from that chopper?
Answering gunshots echoed over the sound of the aircraft. One pinged off metal. She heard more.
None hit her. Or her brother, or the grass around them.
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