Shiver of Fear

by Roxanne St Claire

  And, holy shit, there was stuff in there.

  Not jewelry, but tiny scraps of paper, handwritten notes or a letter that had been torn to teensy bits and stored there. A fine chill fluttered down her spine as she touched a few pieces of paper, reading random words like decision and promise and never and please….

  Shreds of something far more personal and valuable than hidden jewelry. This pile of paper bore the fingerprints of emotion. Someone had torn it in anger, then saved it in remorse. No single piece of paper contained more than two words. Was this one ripped document, or many?

  She picked up one more piece, blank on one side, and turned it. Her heart stopped and her eyes widened. She’d found the signature of the person who had sent this letter, and everything changed.

  Best, Finn.

  The paper almost burned her hands. Finn MacCauley had written this diatribe. How old was this? Could this be criminal evidence that could be key to finding a most-wanted fugitive, or was it just a lover’s torn missive?

  That wasn’t her question to answer. This should be turned over to the FBI, stat.

  Her hands trembled a little as she carefully fingered the shreds, rationalizations screaming in her head.

  She had a possible key to finding Finn MacCauley, right in her hot little hands. These shreds were more valuable than the freaking Constitution to her. To her business, which could explode if they brought in a high-profile fugitive.

  “I have to keep this,” she said, silencing any internal argument. “I can’t give this to Lang. Not yet anyway.”

  Decision made, she turned, looking around for something that could hold the torn treasure. Still holding the find, she headed back into the office and returned to the shelves where she’d seen half a box of standard business envelopes. She pulled one out and tapped the bits of paper into it, her gaze moving around the office, stopping on a wall calendar.

  The quintessential image of emerald Irish hills rolling down into a vast spread of bizarre rectangular stones, the words in a Gaelic font: The Giant’s Causeway.

  Wasn’t Marc just there yesterday? Sealing the envelope, she walked to the calendar and lifted the page, sucking in a little surprised breath at how familiar it was.

  “Too freaky,” she whispered, staring at the image of the seaside resort of Bangor, exactly where Chessie had just sent Marc. The month, September, was empty of any notes, except for one date, circled in red. The 17th. Three letters written: PUG.

  Something clicked in place. Puggaree17. The e-mail Marc had them checking.

  She looked to the next page. This one had a church spire over a sweet little village called Enniskillen. She had to squint to read the tiny notations on most of the days in October. Single letters—A, B, B, D, F, G. And every so often, a number sign.

  This definitely qualified as unusual, so she took the calendar and the precious envelope and headed back out the way she came in, trying to figure out who to share this with.

  She knew who not to share it with—Colton Lang.

  Buttoning his shirt in the pitch-black room, listening to the sounds of Devyn dressing in the bathroom, Marc tried telling himself that getting dressed up and sneaking out of the hotel by blending into a crowded wedding was a smart way to achieve what still was his original goal—to get Devyn out of Belfast.

  So of course he hadn’t put up a fight, and it wasn’t just because he was temporarily blinded by lust.

  Although he was that, too.

  He was going along with her escape plan because of another male weakness he harbored—the need to help women with a cause. And not just any kind of woman, oh, no. That would be too easy.

  The worst kind of woman—flawless and perfect on the outside and scarred and wrecked and ruined on the inside. Marc Rossi to the rescue.

  Except hadn’t he learned from Laura that he couldn’t fix those internal scars? Women like that despised themselves and were incapable of love. He couldn’t make Laura love herself after her mess of a childhood, but he didn’t accept that fact until the day she stuck her sweet little Beretta 92—the one he’d given her for her birthday—in his face and damn near killed him.

  Because no matter how he’d tried to show Laura he loved her, she refused to believe that deep inside she was worthy of that love. So all that effort was wasted.

  And she was an embezzler. He couldn’t forget that.

  Devyn was no criminal, like his ex-wife. But she was lost, alone, and longing for something he didn’t think her birth mother was going to give her. He could help her find that out, but he couldn’t, absolutely could not, let himself get involved with her.

  Rescuing her was not his job. Getting her out of Belfast was.

  “Hey, I’d dance with you.”

  He looked up from the cuff he was tugging through a sports coat sleeve, his night vision easily strong enough to see the vision in front of him.

  The wrong woman who looked very, very right in a short black dress, a deep V at the neckline, the waist tapered to show the curves of her narrow frame.

  The memories of the woman he’d married—last seen by Marc on her way to prison—faded instantly. “We’ll dance right out the door and to the balcony if your plan works.”

  “It’ll work. It has to.” Her whole face lit with a renewed spark for her not-so-secret fantasy for a mother-daughter connection that would erase the pain he sometimes saw in her eyes.

  He wasn’t going to be the one easing that pain, not in any permanent way. He had to remember that.

  No matter how much he wanted to.

  “I have an idea about our bags,” he said. “Let’s stash what we absolutely need into that small carry-on, and I’ll just tote it over my shoulder like a camera bag or something. It’s not that noticeable.”

  “And the laptop?” she asked.

  “I downloaded everything we might need onto a jump drive and deleted the rest. We’ll just leave everything here in the room safe, not that it’s any guarantee of safety. Just pack very light. Like, almost nothing.”

  He indicated her suitcase and went into the bathroom to let her have privacy. Whatever she was hiding in there—her clue to finding Finn—would be going with them to Enniskillen, he supposed. “Just take what’s mission critical, Dev.”

  When he came back out, she was waiting, the little bag zipped up. He took the rest of their stuff and pushed it deep under the bed, although he wouldn’t be surprised if it was all gone when they got back. Nothing of earth-shattering value there anyway.

  A few minutes later, they were waiting at the service elevator in an empty hallway, to all appearances a couple on their way out for the evening. When the elevator doors opened, the car was empty. Inside, alone, they shared a look.

  “Step two accomplished,” she said.

  He frowned at her. “What was step one?”

  “Getting you to agree to this.”

  With a whisper of a smile, he leaned closer and put a kiss on her forehead. “Evidently I can’t say no to you.”

  “That makes two of us,” she said. “Sorry we got so carried away before.”

  “I’m not.” He slipped his free hand into hers. “Listen, don’t leave me, not for one millisecond. Is that clear?”

  “I promise I won’t.”

  “Do exactly as we planned. Stay to the outside perimeter of the room and keep talking to me or listening. Just fake like we are in the deepest, most riveting conversation of our lives. We don’t want to talk to anyone else, and our goal is to get in and out as fast as possible.”

  “What if someone questions us? Or chases us?”

  “Just follow my lead.” He added a squeeze to her hand. “Don’t question, don’t argue, don’t act suddenly with a better idea. One of us is in charge, and it’s me.”

  The elevator doors opened to a crowded hall full of wedding guests who had spilled out of the ballroom, which was already noisy from the effects of an open bar, the music in the main room loud enough to make talking out here difficult.

 
As she scanned the crowd, her gaze stopped at a man standing at the large double doors outside of the ballroom, looking in as he talked on a cell phone.

  “Oh my God, Marc, it’s—”

  Before she had the name out, Marc whipped her in the opposite direction, blocked her with his body, and pushed her into the crowd. “Move!”

  CHAPTER 16

  I got ’em,” Padraig Fallon whispered into his cell phone. “They just got off the elevator, dressed for the wedding.”

  “The wedding? What the hell for?”

  “Blend in, I guess. And they—shit—spotted me. He’s taking her farther away.”

  “That’s not a problem, is it?”

  The truth was, he wanted them to see him. “Not if they’re going to Enniskillen, it isn’t. If they go there, stay there, and get lost there, everyone’s going to be fine.” He scanned the faces again, none familiar, none threatening. “Anyway, I don’t care if they see me. It’s the others I’m worried about.”

  And he hadn’t been smart enough to dress to fit in, as they had. He’d already gotten some sideways glances from other guests, but no one had spoken to him.

  “Are they going outside yet?”

  “It’s a long way to the parking lot door,” he said. “They’ve gone into the ballroom, staying at the edge. Probably working their way toward the back balcony.” Smart again. If someone was going to take them out right here and now, they’d most likely not be in this wedding room.

  Padraig wasn’t in the ballroom, and he couldn’t bloody well walk in there, either. A cheer went up from the crowd inside as a groomsman took the mike and the dreadful music finally died down. Toast time. A few guests hurried by him to get back inside for the speech, giving Padraig an opportunity to reposition himself and see his targets.

  “Okay,” he reported. “They’re way in the back of the room, slowly working their way past one of the bars. No one seems to have noticed them.”

  “Can they get to the parking lot from there?”

  “The ballroom leads to an aboveground terrace. There are stairs that go down to the side, then around to the lot. Not the easiest way, but smarter for them.”

  “So he knows what he’s doing.”

  “He’s well trained,” Padraig agreed. “Former FBI. I surely hope he knows what he’s doing.”

  In his ear, a soft snort. “Now where are they?”

  “Still walking… Oh, fuck.”

  “What is it?”

  “Trouble.”

  A man had risen from one of the tables and kept his head down as he walked to the back of the room, but Padraig recognized the profile.

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “The kind we don’t want.”

  But the wrong person had his young couple on the radar, and although they were getting close to the wall of doors that led to the terrace, they might not be fast enough. Padraig had two choices—run into the ballroom, in the middle of the best man’s droning toast, and swing all of the attention to him and off them, or haul ass out the back, run around the backside of the building, and somehow get them first.

  With no more than a split-second deliberation, he bolted down the hall, thrusting the phone into his pocket without bothering to end the call. He had to sidestep a few surprised guests, but he still had that low-to-the-ground speed that had saved his life on many occasions, in the field and in the boxing ring.

  They could have taken this route, but the wedding path was so much smarter and safer, moving through innocent guests instead of by a gunman who could be waiting to take them down. Padraig moved as though a bullet could hit him at any second, because it could.

  Using his full body weight, he threw the back doors open, whipping around to the right, and running down the hill behind the hotel, reaching the bottom in seconds, surrounded by Dumpsters and the employee parking lot. The steps that led from the ballroom terrace to the hotel guest lot were thirty feet away, an eternity, even with how fast he was running.

  As he ran, he looked up at the railing along the balcony, catching a glimpse of couples leaning over, a few smokers strewn about, no sign of the two he wanted or the man he was relatively certain had them in his sights as well.

  He reached the stairs and hesitated in the shadows, hoping he’d see them hustling down, their plan to sneak out executed without a flaw. But no one ran toward him. No one even walked down the stairs.

  Enough doors were open to the ballroom that he could hear an outburst of laughter, then applause. Some more talking and another round of applause.

  They couldn’t have gotten by him, could they? Marc Rossi wasn’t that good, was he? He couldn’t outsmart a guy like Padraig—

  The kick from behind hit his kidney at the same moment an arm looped around his neck, cracking it to the right. Fuck.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Evidently, he was that good. “Just making sure you got the message, mate.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Padraig Fallon,” he said, the pressure of a pistol at his back replacing the knee.

  “Ask him!” The female voice was more distant, even deeper in the shadows, as though Rossi had made her stay back while he did the dirty work.

  “How do you know Devyn?” he demanded. “How do you know so much about her?”

  Padraig managed to get a look up the stairs and saw movement. Or at least he thought he did. Had Rossi seen it?

  “You better get the fuck out of here, lad,” he warned.

  “Not without answers. You think I’m stupid enough to go exactly where you want us to go without knowing why, who you are, or who you work for?” He yanked Padraig’s head farther to the side and jabbed the gun barrel into him. “Let’s go. We’re gonna talk.”

  Definitely someone at the top of the stairs. Listening… about to take aim… about to fire.

  “You want her to live?” he asked.

  Rossi slid his hand around Padraig’s throat, curling a finger into the chain around his neck and twisting it like a noose. “You are in no position to bargain, Fallon. I want answers, and I want them now.”

  The chain snapped and his medal spit off to the side, clunking to the ground. “Someone’s about to shoot her.”

  “And that’s why you’re sending us to some obscure town across the country?”

  “That’s why—”

  A shot exploded, noise and white light and the whiz of a bullet right next to them. Instantly, Marc thrust him away, so hard Padraig stumbled to the ground, hitting his hip with a bone-jolting smack.

  Rossi flipped around, using his body to shield the woman and turning his Glock toward the top of the stairs to take aim. But another bullet whizzed by, the flash showing them the shooter had made it halfway down the stairs.

  Rossi was already pushing the woman in the other direction, trying to get her out.

  “Padraig, what the hell is going on?” The voice came from the phone in his pocket, still on. He ignored the plea, reaching instead for his weapon, getting it out just as the man on the stairs took another shot at the couple running away.

  He could stop this. He could save them, or he could roll into the darkness under the stairs and let them make it on their own. The shooter reached the bottom of the stairs, possibly still unaware of Padraig. He could get one shot, take this bastard down, let the couple get away where they could do no harm.

  If he missed, he’d be dead.

  He lifted his gun and steadied his arm, waiting for the man to come two feet closer, and pulled the trigger. The bullet went right past the bastard.

  Already there were thunderous footsteps as people ran out of the ballroom, some screaming at the gunshots. But right above him, his target, still damn whole, stopped and looked down, recognition darkening his features.

  “What the fuck, Padraig Fallon?” He pointed his gun at Padraig’s face.

  Now he had to kill the guy, no matter what. He shot point-blank, rolling away as he did, catching a glimpse of the former FBI agent looking ba
ck from the parking lot to which he’d escaped, just in time to see it all happen.

  In front of him, the man slumped to his knees, swearing, as blood gurgled out of his belly.

  “You fucker, Fallon,” he mumbled, falling facedown. “You fucking bastard.”

  Padraig ran, knowing that even if he was arrested, it would only mean he’d be detained, not held. He had more clout than all of the police in Belfast.

  And he’d done his job—they were off to Enniskillen.

  A1 to the M1 to the A4. Marc had memorized the directions and used every brain cell to focus on getting their little rental through traffic, away from any threats, and on to those roads.

  Devyn hardly spoke, as if she were in tune with his bone-deep need to concentrate on the wrong-side driving, the foreign roads, the determination to get the hell out of Belfast.

  Sailing along the M1 at top speed and a half hour into the country west of Belfast, they still hadn’t discussed what had happened in the shadows of the hotel parking lot. Marc was replaying the scenario in his mind, trying to piece together what didn’t fit.

  And what didn’t fit is that someone tried to kill them, and instead of aiding and abetting that effort, Padraig Fallon shot the assailant and gave them a chance to run. Based on that, and only on that, Marc agreed to follow the man’s directions.

  “The question is,” he mused aloud, finally ready to break the silence, “who’s after you, and why?”

  “No,” she countered. “The question is who’s got Sharon, and why does she need my help?”

  “We’re coming at this from two different angles,” he said. “And it makes me wonder if there aren’t two different angles.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He didn’t answer right away, still mulling it over. “That maybe more than one party is threatening you. Maybe you’ve walked into the middle of some kind of… turf war.”

  “I don’t know,” she said, exhaustion coloring her tone. “I’m sorry I convinced you to jump him for answers.”