by Rachel Grant
“So he had the knife, but you were arrested.”
“Bingo.” He reached to straighten his nonexistent tie. The silk accessory was always a reminder of his success, but today it was absent in favor of comfort, so he wiggled his toes inside his shoes. Expensive, well-made shoes. Lawyerly shoes. A symbol of how far he’d come since he was the brainy fourteen-year-old on scholarship, with nothing but thrift-store footwear to shod his rapidly growing feet.
There was so much more to the story, and for some crazy reason, he wanted her to know. To understand him. Because no one had in the longest time.
It had been years since anyone had even asked.
“When I was fourteen, I was picked on a lot at that school. I was the poor kid who’d skipped two grades. I outscored everyone on the exams and blew the curve. My classmates were rewarded with things like trips to Europe for getting As, and I kept screwing that up for them. I’d been taking karate for several years and thought I could handle myself, so one day an argument came to blows. I was younger and weaker and had my ass handed to me. So I started lifting, bulked up, and trained in other martial arts. By my senior year—when I was sixteen—I didn’t know what I was capable of.”
“And you got in a fight again.” The vibrant energy that accompanied his initial revelation had left her as the conversation became serious. “And beat the crap out of him because he’d pulled a knife on you.”
But it hadn’t been the knife; it had been his opponent’s words. Curt’s girlfriend had found a new guy, without the courtesy of breaking up first. The boy’s taunts had triggered heartache, which unleashed primal violence.
“My first time in a courtroom, I was a defendant. The case against me was dropped after my ex-girlfriend recanted and admitted the other guy brought the knife to school to threaten me. Her father—a prominent attorney—and the senator sent the happy couple to the Virgin Islands for a week to recover from the emotional trauma.”
“He didn’t get into trouble for bringing a weapon to school?”
“He said he was invincible because his dad was a senator. And he was right.”
“And you’ve worked your whole life to change that.”
“Yes. And as attorney general, I’ll ensure no one believes they are above the law.” The moment the case was dismissed, he’d felt a rush of clarity. He shelved his application to MIT for a degree in chemical engineering and applied to Harvard, all while fearing his violent action had made acceptance impossible.
When his acceptance letter arrived, he’d vowed he wouldn’t screw up again. He wouldn’t squander the opportunity he’d been given.
Violence existed inside him, and heartache had released it, so he swore off love and relationships in favor of career and never regretted his decision. Now, twenty-two years later, he was on the cusp of achieving his ultimate goal, and for the first time since he was sixteen, he felt something for a woman he couldn’t push away.
He shook his head at the irony and pressed the accelerator to the floor. The sooner they got to DC, the sooner he could be himself again.
Miles passed under the tires, while minutes inched by. He wasn’t entirely certain the space-time continuum had remained constant during the endless drive, but would wait to do the math when he got home.
Mara checked the phone at random intervals as planned, and three hours after sending the initial text, she received a reply: TRYING TO CALL. LEAVE PHONE ON.
“That could have been sent by anyone,” Curt said.
“Should I ignore it?”
“No. Tell her to call at three Eastern Time.” He signaled for the next exit.
“Why are you pulling over?”
“We’re going to switch drivers so I can talk to Jeannie—if it’s Jeannie.”
“She won’t talk to you.”
“She should. No one knows how to cut a deal with a conspirator better than me.”
“Maybe she’s not a conspirator.”
“She took a payoff. She might be a victim, but she’s also a conspirator.”
“It looks like I took a payoff too, but I didn’t.”
Curt was silent.
Her face flushed. “Damn it! You know I—”
“Jeannie altered your field notebook and lied about why you left the site,” he said, cutting off her outrage. “Records in her computer show her brother’s gambling debts were paid by an offshore account that contained a hundred grand. She’s a conspirator.”
“Let me talk to her first; then you can float deals. Okay?” She tapped out a text message while Curt pulled to the side of the frontage road. She shut off the phone until the appointed time.
Mara jolted when the phone rang at three o’clock sharp. She held the phone between them, and caller ID showed a number. “That’s Jeannie,” she confirmed.
“Answer on speaker phone.”
She took a deep breath and hit the button. “Jeannie, do you know what happened to your brother?”
“Yes, Mara. She does,” a man said.
Mara gasped.
Curt snatched the phone and hit Disconnect. He snapped plastic in his rush to pry off the back and pluck out the battery. “Was that Evan?”
Her face was sickly pale. “Yes.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CURT THREW THE SUV in drive and floored the accelerator. “We don’t know what kind of toys Raptor has for hacking phones. That shouldn’t have been a long enough connection to lock in on our signal, but we can’t take the chance. Use the other phone to call Palea. Tell him Evan found Jeannie.”
She blanched even paler. “Do you think she’s still alive?”
What could he say? There were no words to soften this blow. He reached across the console and squeezed her hand. “It doesn’t look good for her.”
“I’m going to be sick.”
“Can you hold it together until we put some distance between us and where we answered the call?”
She nodded, her lips tightly sealed. She gripped his fingers to the point of pain.
His gut churned. “We should change our route. Go north or south, then resume east.” Opening arguments were probably wrapping up now. Tomorrow the first witness would take the stand, and again he wouldn’t be there.
“No, Curt. You can’t miss any more of the trial.” The death grip on his fingers intensified.
“I’ll miss all of it if Evan finds us.”
“What if we find him?” she asked in a low, quiet voice. “And we were ready for him.”
Raindrops splattered the windshield, the first drops of what promised to be a nasty storm. Curt flipped the wipers on and tightened his one-handed grip on the wheel. “Ready for him?”
“He’s after me. What if we let him find me? We could be waiting for him…”
He took his eyes off the developing squall to glare at her. “Waiting for him? You want to be bait?” Fear tore through him with the ferocity of a lightning bolt. “No. No fucking way, Mara.”
“Why not? I’ll be bait when I testify. Raptor could have a whole squadron of operatives outside the courthouse, waiting for me.”
The road darkened as they entered the heart of the storm, forcing him to release her hand and take the wheel in a two-handed grip. “You’ll be surrounded by FBI agents.” Even as he said the words, he wondered how he could go on if he failed her.
DARKNESS HAD LONG since fallen when Lee called. Curt was driving, so Mara answered the phone. “Raptor has facilities in Hawai’i, Texas, Alaska, Virginia, and Montana,” he said. “Don’t tell Curt this, but I did a little research into company flight logs.” Mara took that to mean he’d hacked into Raptor’s system—a feat that drew her admiration. Curt hadn’t been kidding about Lee’s technical skills. “Four days after Roddy and Evan returned from North Korea, they took a Raptor jet and flew to Virginia with a stopover at the Texas compound.”
“They could have delivered the bomb to Texas or Virginia,” Mara said.
“That’s my thinking. Virginia is the most likely choice. That
’s where their technological hub is, and where they’d most likely have the ability to reverse engineer the bomb.”
“Where in Virginia is it?”
“Not far south of DC. Their home office is in the city, but that’s primarily the business wing—”
“Yes, I know about the DC office. It’s where my uncle works.”
“Right. Sorry.”
After she hung up, Mara relayed the flight information, but not how Lee had obtained it.
“He hacked Raptor, didn’t he?”
She shrugged, refusing to be the snitch.
“Interesting, but useless. I can’t tell a judge about those flights in my request for a search warrant.”
AT ONE A.M. Eastern time, they crossed the state line from Tennessee to Virginia. In seven hours, they’d reach DC. Mara was at the wheel for the momentous crossing.
“Pull over at the next exit,” Curt instructed. “We need gas and I need to stretch my legs.”
The gas station was a huge truck stop with attached diner. Big rigs flanked both sides of the lot, engines idling as their drivers filled up on coffee and food.
She shivered as she reached for the pump. The pullover they’d purchased in Amarillo couldn’t compete with the cold late-October Virginia night. Curt removed his jacket and draped it over her shoulders. “We should’ve bought you a warmer coat at Target.”
She slipped her arms through the sleeves and looked damn cute in the oversized coat. “Thanks,” she said, pulling it tighter around her midsection. “Damn, it’s cold here.” Her teeth chattered.
“Go inside and get some coffee,” he said. “I’ll pump the gas.”
She cocked her head to the side. “You sure?”
This was a break in their protocol. He hadn’t left her side in days. He nodded toward the bright windows of the well-lit diner. “I’m watching.”
She stepped forward and brushed her lips over his, a soft kiss that made him want more. He caught her arm, pulled her against him, and kissed her deeply. Igniting fires he shouldn’t, taking pleasure he couldn’t have.
This was foolish. Wrong. He released her mouth. Her eyes were hot, smoky with arousal, and her breath came out in uneven pants.
“When this is over, Mara, I’m going to take you somewhere quiet and safe, and make love to you for days.” He shouldn’t have voiced the fantasy he’d harbored for thousands of miles, but she’d decimated his control.
“When this is over, we probably won’t be on speaking terms.”
He pressed a finger to her lips. “Who said anything about talking?”
She chuckled. Her forehead rested against his chest for a moment; then she took a deep breath and said, “I’ll get coffee.”
With that, she dashed to the diner. He turned back to the tank, inserted the nozzle, then remembered he needed to give the clerk in the glass booth cash to get the pump started. He reached for the money envelope, but it was in his coat pocket. Circling around the vehicle to catch up to her, he came face-to-face with Evan Beck and his Glock 23.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
MARA STOOD JUST inside the diner, staring out the window, frozen in fear. One moment she’d been in a dreamy haze, and the next she glanced through the window and saw Evan. With a gun. Aimed at Curt.
She patted the coat pockets and found the gun they’d been given in Arizona. The bullets, sadly, were still in Curt’s pants pocket.
Could she pull off a bluff with a mercenary who knew her well?
She had to. Curt’s life depended on it. She eased open the door, wincing at the bell that jangled. But Evan was too focused on Curt to turn around, and Curt was too smart to give away her approach.
A semitruck pulled into the lot with an earsplitting screech of hydraulic brakes. Mara used the cover of noise to dart forward, charging Evan.
He spun at the last second, but his face showed no surprise at seeing her. He shifted, pointing the gun at her. He hesitated for one frozen instant, and Mara launched herself at him feetfirst.
A shot rang out, flying high as she slammed into the injured knee that had forced Evan’s medical discharge from the marines.
He howled in agony and dropped to the ground, his gun still clenched in his hand. His body collapsed on hers, a two-hundred pound heap that crushed her into the litter-strewn ground. She lashed out, kneeing, biting, and punching everything she could reach, ignoring a sharp pain in her thigh as they grappled on the jagged pavement.
He tried to get his arm around, to free the gun from the tangle of their bodies. She landed a blow to his groin, and he grunted.
Pinned beneath him, she heard him mutter something and stopped fighting. “What?”
“Jean—” Evan’s words cut off as Curt kicked Evan in the side. He tumbled to the right, off her.
Had Evan’s initial hesitation been real, or had she imagined it?
Curt lifted Evan by the throat. His grip on the two-hundred-pound mercenary appeared effortless in his rage, making Evan look like he had no more substance than a rag doll.
“Wait, he said something about Jeannie!” Mara yelled, scrambling to her feet.
Curt’s wild, angry eyes turned to her in the same moment he released Evan’s throat. Evan crumpled when the leg with the shattered knee touched pavement.
She scrambled for Evan’s gun and realized he landed on it when he fell. She lunged for it, too late. He was already bringing the gun around.
Curt grabbed her, shoved her behind him, and kicked Evan’s gun hand in the same moment. The gun swung inward and upward as it fired. Evan’s lower jaw exploded.
Her ex-fiancé’s glazed eyes met hers. He aimed the weapon at the remainder of his face and pulled the trigger.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
THE BRIGHT PARKING lot was even brighter under the onslaught of ambulances, police cars, and eventually, news vans. Curt watched the scene from the inside of an FBI sedan, answering questions from a local agent. Mara was being interviewed separately in a nearby vehicle.
“You must be relieved Ms. Garrett is out of danger. Now you can return to DC and the trial without having to worry,” the agent said.
“She’s still in danger,” Curt said. “Evan Beck was operating on orders from Raptor.”
“I never took you for a conspiracy theorist, Mr. Dominick.”
Curt bristled at the derision in the man’s tone. “I’m not.”
“You sure sound like one. Raptor is after her?” The younger man laughed. “Word from the SAC investigating the murder at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base is Evan Beck was working alone. The evidence shows he was obsessed with Garrett. She dumped him, and he took it hard. He was jealous of Airman Fuller—had been since he caught them out on a date last year. When she got all sorts of attention for being detained in North Korea, he snapped. This isn’t an international incident; it’s domestic violence, pure and simple.”
Shit. At some point in the last forty-eight hours, the tide had shifted in Raptor’s favor. The mercenary organization had deep pockets and important friends. He’d known from Palea the pressure had been on to put the kibosh on the investigation, and now it appeared someone high in the hierarchy had caved.
He glanced toward the vehicle where Mara was undergoing a similar interview and felt sick. She was a sitting target, and these baby agents had been ordered to decorate her in neon.
The prepaid cell phone vibrated against his hip. “I need to take this call.”
“We’re not done—”
“I’m the US attorney for the District of Columbia. I don’t answer to you.” He exited the vehicle and answered Palea’s call.
“Curt, you need to get Mara out of there.”
Dread crawled up his spine. “I was just thinking the same thing, but I want to know how you came to that conclusion.”
“The powers that be are putting pressure on me to attribute the crimes to Mara’s stalker ex and close the case. I’m having trouble fighting them, because Evan did commit all the crimes on Oahu.”
&n
bsp; Curt swore. “Either someone took a payoff, or they’re returning a favor.” This was why he wanted to be attorney general.
“My thoughts exactly,” Palea said.
His gaze remained fixed on Mara. He could tell she argued with the agent questioning her from her flailing arms and the set of her chin. “If Evan acted alone, then there’s no reason to continue protecting her.”
“Bingo. She’ll be on Raptor’s home turf without a safe house or security detail.”
The vehicle holding Mara pulled forward. “Gotta go.” Curt jammed the phone into his pocket and ran in front of the car. The driver slammed on the brakes. The bumper stopped an inch shy of Curt’s knees.
The agent poked his head out of the window. “Out of the way, Mr. Dominick. I’m taking Ms. Garrett to DC. Your job is done.”
Anger surged through him. After everything he’d been through with her, this dipshit agent thought he could just drive off with Mara? Hell no.
He wanted to pummel the man. The violence he’d avoided for so long beckoned. With iron will, he held anger at bay and spoke through stiff lips. “She needs to go to the hospital. Now. She needs stitches for that cut on her thigh.”
“Amazing you can diagnose her from the front bumper, Mr. Dominick. I heard you were a good lawyer but didn’t realize you were a doctor too.”
Was it possible Raptor’s campaign to ruin him had succeeded where so many others had failed over the years? They’d managed to bring him low in the eyes of the FBI. He’d lost the status and respect he’d earned through years of work as a federal prosecutor.
Tomorrow he’d worry about what this meant for his career, but right now he had a bigger concern. He met Mara’s gaze through the windshield. “Get out of the car, Mara.”
She wrenched open the door. The agent at the wheel caught her arm. The man’s voice was muffled through the glass, but his menacing tone was clear. “You’re making a big mistake, Ms. Garrett.”
Mara nodded toward Curt. “I look forward to when he becomes attorney general, so I can watch him fire your ass.” She jerked her arm out of his grasp. “I told you I need to see a doctor.” She climbed out of the car and slammed the door. She straightened her shirt, which was coated in blood, some Evan’s, some her own. She had road rash on her arm, bruises on her face, and true to his word, a cut on her thigh, probably caused by a shard of glass as she rolled on the pavement with Evan. All her wounds lent credence to the claim she needed to see a doctor.