Expired Hero

by Lisa Phillips

  Trina’s eyes narrowed. She held that knife out, steady like the entire place wasn’t coming down around them. “I’m going to kill you myself. Then the director will know I’m the clear choice for his wife. Not you.”

  “Marry him. What do I care?”

  “It’ll take more than your disapproval to get him to change his mind. You need to be dead.”

  “So, stop talking about it, and kill me.” She shrugged. “What do I care?” She said it with more emphasis this time.

  Kaylee just wanted all this to be over already. What was the point in dragging it out?

  She rushed for the door. If Trina thought she was going to escape, maybe she would just stick that blade in her heart and get it done with.

  Kaylee wanted to feel the betrayal. To feel the sting of the knife and know it was all done. She didn’t want to be here anymore.

  She wanted… Don’t think about him. She had to pay attention to what was happening around her. Otherwise she would never get out of here alive.

  Her fingertips touched the door. It wasn’t a handle, more like a lever, and it locked automatically when it closed.

  Pain cut like a whip of fire across her stomach, a brand, of sorts, that ran from right beside her belly button to her ribs underneath her arm.

  Kaylee hissed.

  The door could only be unlocked from the other side. Unless the next explosion blew the door open, the only way they were getting out was if someone in the hall had a key. Trina had trapped herself in here with Kaylee.

  Unless she had a way to get out.

  The crazed look on her friend’s face—those wide, glassy eyes—and her quick, panting breaths led Kaylee to believe she wasn’t all that mentally stable.

  As Kaylee clutched her side and tried not to think about the wet under her fingers or the cut in the material of her shirt, she backed up to the wall beside the metal toilet. She needed to get out of here but that was next to impossible since God had abandoned her so thoroughly. She’d tried to live a quiet, peaceful life, but that had imploded. People with their agendas, who thought they had power over everyone, decided differently.

  Those men, especially that one suited, older man and his ideas about how her life should play out.

  People like Trina.

  Even her brother, who had sold her out for his own freedom. Or Stuart, dying before he could keep his word that he would take care of her.

  A sob worked its way up her throat. Kaylee refused to embrace the emotion. It was better to hold onto this coldness she’d discovered. The pure ice of being all alone with no hope. No future. No way to be anything other than a helpless victim of other people’s ideas and plans.

  “Nice try.” Trina launched at her with the bloody knife outstretched.

  Kaylee screamed. A protest to getting cut again. Too late she realized Trina had only flinched at her.

  Trina tipped her head back and laughed.

  The door thumped. Probably debris from an explosion. “We’re going to die in here.”

  “You will.” Trina grinned.

  The latch clicked, and the door flung open. A man filled the doorway, but before she could see who it was, Trina grabbed Kaylee and spun her to the front as a shield. Trina’s arm banded around her waist and pressed deeply onto the cut she’d made on Kaylee’s waist.

  She cried out.

  The knife pressed against her neck, Trina spoke right beside her ear, “One step closer, and she bleeds out.”

  This woman sounded nothing like the friend she’d known. A completely different person than the one Kaylee had spent time with. Felt for. Bought gifts for. Cried and laughed with.

  “Let me go.”

  Trina laughed again. “Now this is interesting.”

  The man lifted a gun and crossed the threshold. Stuart. “Hi, Kaylee.”

  Trina let out a cry of frustration. “You should worry a whole lot more about me right now. Otherwise she’s dead, and all the trouble you’ve caused is for nothing.”

  “Let her go.” His voice washed over her like a cooling balm. Like her memory of her father’s voice, or the way it felt to be held by the man she was growing to love.

  “Stuart.” She whispered his name. Everything in her tensed to move toward him, to rush over and fling herself into his arms. He was the safe place she wanted to be. But no, not a place—not even Last Chance—just Stuart, and what he had become to her.

  She stared at him while a whimper worked its way to her throat. See me. I’m right here. Every fiber of her being yearned for him, called out to him, and ached to be by his side. In his embrace.

  He didn’t look at her. All his attention was on Trina, the lines of his body giving away nothing. Not even tension. His face was blank. So emotionless. She wanted to weep. Father.

  Stuart had come for her. He wasn’t dead. You never abandoned me, did You?

  She didn’t want to correlate the two with one another, or maybe ‘shouldn’t’ was the better word. But in her mind, they were synonymous. Stuart was God’s blessing in her life. He was love, acceptance, and peace.

  Trina gripped her tighter, causing another stab of stinging pain to catch her breath. Trina said, “You think I can’t slit her throat before you even get a shot off? If I don’t, she and I are both dead, so I have nothing to lose. The only one who loses is you.”

  He didn’t back down or lower the gun. A muscle ticked in his jaw. That was the only indication of his stress level. Aside from that one thing, he looked like a tower. A pillar of strength, everything she wanted to be instead of this blank, frozen being who felt nothing and could do nothing.

  All Kaylee had was cold and pain.

  “The whole compound is coming down on top of us. Let her go, and we all get out of here.”

  Trina’s body flinched.

  Kaylee jumped on the reaction that suddenly flooded her heart; the desire to run. To flee death and escape. “We can go, Trina. Let’s just go.”

  “I’m going to be his wife.” She sounded desperate now and not so sure of herself.

  “Great. You go, and I’ll pretend to be dead.” For good measure, Kaylee added, “In a way, he’ll never know.”

  The knife dug into her skin. Kaylee sniffed in a breath, her whole body tensing. She was so fatigued, it was like one full body cramp. She wanted to cry out, but there was no breath in her to do so. Her legs started to give out. Until Trina was the only thing holding her up.

  “You die. It’s the only way.”

  Kaylee fought the collapse. She started to slide, the knife cutting along the skin on the underside of her chin, and she gasped at the fresh wash of pain. And yet, wasn’t this far better than the alternative? If she was going to die, it would be on her terms.

  Stuart looked at her then, and she saw an infinitesimally small nod of his chin. Kaylee knew what she had to do.

  She looked up, stretching her chin up as far as she could and, in an instant, let her legs give out. It wasn’t hard. The gun exploded. In one move she was on the ground, clutching her chin in her hand. Stuart’s gun smoked.

  Kaylee started to turn.

  He reached for her. “Don’t look.” Stuart pulled her up to stand again, holding up her weight. “Come on. Let’s go. Don’t look at her, Kay. Just come with me.”

  Kay. “My dad called me that.” She moved her hand away from her chin. It was covered in wet, slimy blood. Her head swam.

  “Easy.”

  The hallway shifted. An explosion tore through the hallway. Stuart half carried her to the stairs where he then set her down. She landed on her hands and knees and scrambled up.

  She sensed him right behind her and gasped out a sob, tears rolling down her face.

  At the top of the stairs, he gathered her up again, and they ran down the hall. Kaylee grasped his arm around her and tried to burrow her face in his shoulder even as they ran. Her side stung. So did her chin. Along with everything else.

  Her foot went out from under her, and she nearly dropped. He didn’t let
her fall. “Come on. Quickly now.”

  “I’m trying.”

  “You’re doing great, babe. The best.”

  All Kaylee could do was whimper. She wanted to sleep for a month, but that would bring nightmares. She would wake up still in that room. Edmond would come in… Don’t think about that.

  “Come on!” Zander stood at the end of the hall, holding the door open. “You need to run!”

  Beyond him, a helicopter had its rotors already spinning so fast they blurred. Either that, or her eyes just couldn’t track the rotation.

  “Come on.” Stuart’s grip on her was tight.

  Another explosion threw everything into chaos. Her ears cut off, the boom so loud she could feel it reverberate in her chest. They cleared the door and were now running outside. Kaylee’s ears registered the helicopter, just as Zander climbed in. He reached a hand out, and she took it. Stuart got in right behind her just as she turned to see the building, the one they had been in only a moment ago, collapse into the ground.

  An explosion swallowed the structure, tugging it down like a sinkhole. The concussive force rushed at them, swaying the helicopter as it lifted off.

  Kaylee gasped. Stuart tugged her onto a seat and clipped a seatbelt around her waist. He pulled back the sliced edges of her shirt. She couldn’t help but pant for a stress-free, full breath of air.

  “Sorry.” His face was close. His eyes soft, and kind.

  Kaylee touched his cheeks with bloody fingers. “I guess I can forgive you.”

  His lips twitched. Kaylee decided she didn’t care who was watching.

  She smiled as much as she could and pressed her lips to his.

  Thirty-seven

  One week later

  “Do you think she’ll ever forgive me?”

  Stuart leaned forward in the chair beside Brad’s hospital bed. “Honestly, yeah. She probably will.”

  Now that he had Kaylee back, things were seriously looking up. They weren’t perfect yet, and maybe ‘perfect’ wasn’t a realistic expectation. But he had a shot at a happy future. A family of his own.

  “And you?” Brad said.

  “I’m gonna have to work on that.” Stuart figured it would take time, but he might get there. When he knew for sure there had been no repercussions in Kaylee’s life due to her brother’s actions.

  “That’s all I ask.”

  Stuart nodded, then leaned back in the chair and blew out a long breath.

  “Witness statements?”

  He nodded. “We’ve been at it for a week now, all day conferences at the police department with the FBI and US Attorney. The chief is there, too, looking very pale and not at all like he should even be thinking about being back to work yet. It’s been pretty hush-hush, and I still can’t talk about it.”

  “They bring him down, we’re all free.”

  And yet, Brad had worked to gain freedom only for himself and at the expense of his sister. Stuart wasn’t anywhere near being ready to offer forgiveness. Brad had done a bad thing. Unthinkable, even. Who hung a family member out to dry like that?

  But the lives they’d lived led to blurred lines. Considering the duress Brad had been under, and all they’d gone through that had left even Stuart barely sane, he’d taken the only out he thought was available to him. It was a failure of character or moral fiber. Not something the cops in town could prosecute, even if they weren’t working with the feds to bring down the CIA director right now.

  Last Chance could wind up making a name for itself. Getting on the map, and not for good reason. Most in town preferred the more anonymous life they all lived. No one wanted national attention.

  Least of all Stuart, when Kaylee was technically still in danger—and would be until the CIA director was in federal custody. His network was broken down. The organization disbanded.

  The last thing he wanted was for someone with a grudge to crawl out of the woodwork with Kaylee in their sights. But the FBI had promised them protection by way, specifically, of Special Agent Eric Cullings, who had turned out to be Tate’s brother-in-law. He’d given their word she would be guarded until she was out of danger.

  Stuart was exhausted, wrung out from talking his way through his entire life since the company had first made their approach. Everything he’d seen. All that he’d done, and the name of the person who’d had given him those orders in the first place. Not one thing had been left out, which meant the federal authorities knew the truth of every single thing he’d perpetrated. The good, the bad, and the ugly. Even so, Eric didn’t look at him with disdain. Not even once. Instead, he looked at Stuart as though he was a valuable asset. A man whose hand he shook firmly in a greeting.

  Someone worthy of respect.

  To a man who hadn’t thought of himself in those terms…not just in a long time, but ever in his life before, Stuart would have trouble putting into words how it made him feel.

  But he was working on it.

  Thank You. God had shown up—in a big way. His many blessings were making themselves evident. The truth was out now. With it had come freedom, peace, and joy. A woman he loved. One he desperately needed some quiet time with, not surrounded by recording equipment and people with notepads talking about depositions and hearings.

  Brad had drifted to sleep, so Stuart stepped into the hall where Dean was on protective detail to make sure the director didn’t retaliate and come after any of them.

  “What did he have to say for himself?”

  Stuart lifted a brow. “He’s sorry.”

  “So you’re just going to forgive him?”

  “Would Ellie?” Stuart needed his friend to realize the good people they loved were choosing to forgive.

  Dean blew out a breath. “Is that the point?”

  Stuart grinned. “I’ll be sure and let your girlfriend know she still has some work to do.”

  “She loves me just the way I am. Kind of like how Kaylee feels about your sorry self.” Dean wiped his brow in mock relief. “Good for us.”

  “Yeah.” Stuart took a step back. “Good for us.”

  He took a side door out of the hospital. One most people didn’t know about, let alone use. It led to the rear of the building. He double-timed it into the trees. Instinct was like a second skin. But those highly-trained senses didn’t alert him to anyone watching him through a scope. He didn’t feel the itch between his shoulder blades that would indicate crosshairs aimed over his heart.

  Stuart jogged anyway, using the exercise to dispel all the nervous energy pent up in him. Living in one place this long was unfamiliar. As was having people in his life he cared about—and who cared about him in return.

  Two miles of running got him to the isolated cabin where they’d stashed Kaylee until they got word the CIA director was no longer a threat. It was supposedly owned by a former resident of the town, Victoria Bramlyn. Talking about her was the only time he’d ever seen Zander look nervous. Not even in the heat of a gunfight or buildings exploding around him had Stuart seen that look on his friend’s face.

  He whistled.

  Zander, who’d turned from his post just off the front step, was watching Stuart approach out of the trees.

  “All quiet?”

  The big man nodded. “I’ll make another round. We got ribs in, and we’re gonna fire up the barbeque if you can persuade that woman of yours to make cornbread.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.” Stuart had requested all the fixings for a salad and knew they had baking supplies as well. Kaylee was welcome to help, but he felt like cooking tonight.

  Walking in the front door felt more like coming home than any other time in his life. Stuart stopped just inside the door and pressed his palm to the wall.

  “Hey. You’re here.” Curled up in the corner of the couch, Kaylee set her book on the coffee table. She started to stand.

  He shook his head, moving toward her. “You don’t need to get up.”

  She held out her hand, a smile teasing her lips. He saw none of the disas
sociation he’d seen when he had brought her out of that cell in the compound. She’d suffered. He had rescued her. Was she good now? Or would the trauma resurface in the future?

  She hadn’t had a nightmare since then. Neither had he.

  Stuart pressed his lips to that smile and sank onto the cushions next to her, gathering her against him with an arm around her shoulders.

  “Did you tell him?”

  Stuart reached over and touched the ring on her left hand. “He was more interested in whether or not you were going to forgive him than hearing about your dress and what kind of flowers we had.”

  Kaylee sighed but didn’t comment. She leaned her head on his shoulder. “You don’t think it was too soon?”

  He turned his hand and looked at her ring, then his. The one she’d slid on his finger six days ago in a ceremony held at six in the morning with four armed men and a pastor present. “Do you think it was?”

  “No.”

  “Probably we’re both just delusional, and it was way too soon. Likely this will turn into a nightmare, and we’ll end up screaming at each other and throwing stuff around this cabin because we’re sick of being in such close proximity for weeks and weeks until the trial is done.” He shook his head for emphasis, “But there was no way I was going to go home at the end of the day while someone else protected you. It’s easier to keep two people safe when they’re living in the same house.”

  “Is that the reason?”

  “Dean reamed me good when I told him I wasn’t leaving. He told me how staying was supposed to be for good folks who are in love. Those who are sick of being apart for the sake of being noble.” He shrugged. “So, I said, ‘okay. I’m in!’”

  She shifted, lifting her head from his shoulder to look at him. “Okay?”

  “Am I gonna go anywhere else?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “When we get all worked up about stuff and start throwing things…are you going to throw my book?”

  “Of course not.”

  “None of my things?” She motioned to the vases perched on the bookcase, “What about any of this Victoria person’s things?”