Hallowed Ground

by Mary Alford

  Hallowed Ground

  Book One of The Cost of Redemption Series

  By

  Mary Alford

  COPYRIGHT FOR HALLOWED GROUND

  COPYRIGHT © 2019 by Mary Alford All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  COPYRIGHT FOR HALLOWED GROUND

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Epilogue

  THE COST OF REDEMPTION SERIES

  Also by Mary Alford

  About Mary Alford

  Prologue

  The dust and debris from the explosion mushroomed in all directions, covering everything within a quarter mile in an ash-gray veil. Agent Erin Sandoval couldn’t see beyond her hand in front of her.

  She’d lost visual of her partner in the confusion that ensued seconds before the explosion propelled her backwards some ten feet in the air. The building—a safe house—was destroyed. Reduced to a pile of rubble in seconds. No one in the belly of the structure could have survived the blast.

  “Blake!” Erin yelled into the settling silence, breaking the first rule of an ambush. Never give your position away to the enemy.

  The silty haze that settled over the area made it nearly impossible to see anything. Her voice sounded muffled. Disjointed. Frantic. She was frantic. Where was Blake?

  Dear God, please let him be okay.

  “What happened? Where is he?” Kabir, the team’s Pakistani guide, materialized next to Erin, weapon drawn.

  There was only one place Blake could be.

  “He’s in there.” She threw the words over her shoulder as she ran for the carcass of the building. Before she’d covered more than a couple feet, someone grabbed both arms, holding her in place.

  “Blake!” Relief threatened to take her legs out from under her. “You’re safe.” She whirled only to find it wasn’t Blake at all. Jackson “Jax” Murphy, the commander of the Special Activities Division, the CIA’s covert paramilitary-operations unit, held her in a vise grip.

  Erin struggled to free herself from Jax’s grasp. “Let me go. He’s in there and he could be hurt.”

  Jax didn’t relent. “You can’t go in there. The building isn’t secure.”

  She understood the danger. They’d all lost comrades to the war on terror. The insurgents had perfected the deadly “double threat,” as it was known. If the first explosion didn’t do the trick, the second one would. Still, she didn’t care. This was Blake.

  “We can’t wait for help. He needs us,” she insisted.

  Jax didn’t budge. “You don’t know that for certain. Stand down, Erin. That’s an order.”

  Out of the smoke and chaos, the marines attached to the mission appeared like a ghostly tribe. They were well trained in disarming this latest threat.

  “Search the building. We have an agent missing.” Jax’s gaze held hers. “He could be injured.”

  The squad commander gave Jax a quick nod, then motioned for the team to enter the remains.

  Jax finally released her. “What happened? How’d you two get separated?”

  The sniper attack had taken both of them by surprise. Their intelligence had confirmed that the area was free of enemy insurgents’ hours earlier. Obviously, that wasn’t the case. The enemy had been expecting them. A firefight between Erin and Blake and possibly five rebel soldiers broke out, followed by the explosion.

  “We were ambushed. They were waiting for us, Jax. Blake and I ducked behind that burned-out vehicle over there. Blake was with me until . . .”

  He’d thrown away caution because he believed they were both sitting targets and he wanted to protect her. He made a break for it, determined to draw fire away from Erin. Before she could stop him, the explosion lit up the night and shook their world. The last visual she had of him was heading for the building.

  “He’s in there, I know it, and he needs me.” She didn’t wait for Jax to stop her. As she entered the building’s remains, she met the first marine exiting. The truth was obvious in his grim expression.

  “Please, no,” Erin whispered. Keeping her panic at bay was impossible. The smoke hung thick in the air as she scanned the remains until she saw him lying on the dirt floor. Her partner since the day he’d recruited her. She’d completed her first tour of duty with the second invasion into Afghanistan at his side.

  Three marines worked on defusing the second bomb. The rest of the unit knelt around the man who’d been like a brother to her. Agent Blake Robertson.

  She covered her mouth with a trembling hand and fell to her knees beside him.

  One of the two soldiers had balled up his jacket and held it against the wound to try and stop the bleeding in a futile effort. The jacket and everything around it was soaked in blood.

  Why’d you do it? Tears blurred her vision. It wasn’t supposed to end like this. “No,” was all she could get to come out. She gently touched Blake’s face. The vacant eyes staring into space would haunt her forever. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  Someone knelt next to her. Jax. He’d been Blake’s best friend for longer than Erin had known her partner.

  Jax reached over and closed Blake’s eyes. The finality of the gesture was too much. Erin covered her eyes with her hands and collapsed. She’d lost her best friend to a war that felt impossible to win. To a group of people bent on their destruction, filled with hate. Justified by what they believed was “the cause.”

  “We have to leave, Erin. Now. The marines can’t defuse the bomb. There’s something different about this one.” Jax grabbed her arms and lifted her to her feet.

  “No.” She wouldn’t leave Blake alone. Not like this.

  “Now, Agent.” Jax half-dragged, half-carried her toward the safe area that had been set up some distance from the building.

  Her thoughts wouldn’t come together no matter how hard she tried to make them. She couldn’t focus. Blake’s lifeless eyes were there before her wherever she looked. He’d died. She’d lived. Why?

  “Don’t stop. There’s no time,” Jax said when she turned to look back at Blake one last time. They were almost out of the ruins.

  She barely had time to register the shock in Jax’s voice when the world around them rumbled and shook, then exploded into hell on earth.

  Chapter One

  One month later . . .

  “You know I love you, don’t you, baby sister?”

  She spun to see his face and laughed in spite of the sweltering heat of the day that stuck their clothes to their bodies. This had been a running joke between herself and Blake from the beginning. She was his sister, and he was her brother. They clicked that way.

  Blake was just a big kid at heart. At thirty-five, he resembled a slightly taller, definitely more freckled version of Opie Taylor.

  The day had been one of those rare occasions when they had nothing to do. They were embedded with marines outside Kandahar. Blake squatted in the shadow of an outcropping of rocks. The heat on the desert surface reached a boiling point.

  She shielded her eyes against the blazing sun. “Yes. I know you love me,” she assur
ed him.

  “Promise me, if anything happens to me, you’ll get out of this. You’ll leave the CIA.”

  She studied his expression, her smile fading. They’d had this discussion a few times in the past, but recently it seemed as if Blake brought it up more and more. It had become an obsession with him. Today, there was something in his eyes. He looked haunted almost.

  “Nothing’s going to happen to you, silly.”

  He wasn’t smiling. She’d never seen him look so serious. His brown eyes searched her face as if memorizing every detail of it, and fear clawed at her heart. “I mean it, Erin. I don’t want you to do this without me.”

  If he didn’t sound so solemn, and if she wasn’t feeling that icy cold slither of alarm, she might have been tempted to laugh. It was funny, considering Blake was the one who’d talked her out of leaving the CIA in the beginning, after she’d seen the darkest parts of their job. He’d told her she was a natural-born spy. She still wasn’t sure if that was a compliment.

  “I promise, okay, but nothing’s going to happen, Blake. You’re the best there is. What’s got you so spooked? Is it this case?”

  Blake had been working with his asset for more than a year now, putting the case together. Blake’s contact, a man whose identity only Blake knew, was a Pakistani national with former Al Qaeda ties. They were in the final stages of bringing down the US’s second most wanted terrorist in the world and breaking the back of one of the largest mobile insurgent training camps operating in and around the Afghanistan desert. If they were successful, this would be another major win for the War on Terror. Not quite as impressive as bringing Osama bin Laden down, but close.

  Blake got to his feet and paced. “I don’t know. I can’t really explain it. It’s just a feeling.”

  That in itself should have sent up all sorts of red flags. Blake didn’t believe in feelings. He certainly wasn’t the type of man to give into them.

  Erin tried to think of something to ease his mind. “You’re tired. This mission has been a long time coming. Once it’s over, you should take some time off, go away somewhere.”

  He tried to smile, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Yeah. Maybe one of those tropical island paradises where they serve drinks with little umbrellas in them . . .”

  Her eyes shot open. Cold sweat soaked her body. Erin stared at the ceiling, her breathing coming heavy. She could still see his smile, but it had been a dream. The reality of how senseless his death was warred with bittersweet memories the dream evoked. Closing her eyes tight, she tried to fall back to sleep. If she could have just a few more minutes with him. It didn’t matter if it wasn’t real.

  Yet now when she closed her eyes images of that dreadful night taunted her instead, killing all the sweet memories and reminding her she would never share any of those special moments again with Blake.

  Her body ached from the injuries. A severely sprained wrist, pieces of shrapnel embedded in her face, and three bruised ribs were a constant reminder of the night Blake died.

  Getting out of bed was a struggle, as was dressing. Slowly Erin managed to pull on sweats and a T-shirt while ignoring the pain in her heart no amount of painkillers could take away.

  The urn holding Blake’s ashes still sat on the mantel of her fireplace, taunting her with the things she needed to do. Like bringing Blake’s killers to justice. Getting out of this deadly shadow game before it claimed her life. Finding a final resting place for her big brother.

  With the walls closing in and doubts swamping her like a tidal wave, she couldn’t stay here any longer. Couldn’t be alone. She grabbed her keys and headed out to be with the one person who shared her pain. Jax.

  The streets of DC were slick, glistening in the streetlights. It had been raining for weeks, a fitting atmosphere for the gloom in her heart.

  Erin pulled her car next to the curb near Jax’s quiet home and killed the engine. Tomorrow was going to be a grueling day. Her first one back since Blake’s death. She’d been dreading it for a while. With a final glimpse in the rearview mirror at the shadow of the woman she’d become, she forced her stiff limbs into action and climbed out of the car. Hitting the lock button, she stood outside Jax’s house for a long time debating the wisdom of coming here. She needed to be close to someone who was close to Blake.

  Ringing the doorbell, she half hoped he wouldn’t be home. When the door opened, Jax stood before her dressed in jeans and a sweater, both accentuating his fit frame and sending her mind to places she wasn’t ready to go. That he was still awake at this hour told her he had his own demons to wrestle with. There was no surprise in his blue eyes when he saw her standing on his stoop. He’d been expecting her. Of course, he would since she’d been here every night since she’d been released from the hospital.

  Jax stood aside and let her pass through. The door closed. Seconds passed. Neither spoke. They were helping each other get through an impossible situation, she told herself, ignoring the fact that she’d come to lean on Jax way too much lately.

  “Want some coffee?” he asked when she couldn’t say anything.

  She didn’t, but she needed something to fill the time. “That’d be nice.”

  Erin followed him into the kitchen of his Washington, DC, brownstone. Watched as he poured two cups. Handed her one.

  When the silence stretched out between them, she asked, “How’s work? Anything new with the case?”

  So far, even after digging for weeks, they’d come up empty-handed on identifying Blake’s killers.

  Jax shook his head. “Nothing. It’s as if all our leads have dried up. The training camp in the desert disappeared. Our target, Al Hasan, is a ghost. There’s been nothing from Blake’s asset in weeks. I don’t like it.”

  Erin didn’t either. She couldn’t help but believe something big was in the works. Without Blake’s help, they might not be able to find out the truth until it was too late.

  ◆◆◆

  Every time Jax looked at her, his gut churned with guilt. He’d known going into the mission that something was off because of the way Blake was acting, and yet he hadn’t tried to stop it.

  Neutralizing the threat was imperative. In Jax’s opinion, they needed more time to pull the mission together. But Blake had insisted. Al Hasan, the man they’d been hunting for months, was getting hinky, according to Blake’s asset. Suspecting something was up.

  Because he’d rejected his gut, Blake was dead and that truth had haunted him since he’d lost his friend.

  Jax shoved the guilt aside. He’d dealt with it enough over the past month and it served no purpose. “Are you sure you’re up to coming back to work tomorrow? It’s only been a month,” he said and regretted the reminder.

  Erin set down her coffee cup and ambled toward the window. He could see all her doubts through the reflection in the window.

  She sighed. “As up to it as I’ll ever be.” Pivoting, she faced him again. “I don’t want to make a big deal of it. I just want to get it over with.”

  The emptiness in her eyes was hard to take. Erin had always been so alive before Blake’s death. Full of energy, she was one of the best agents he’d had the pleasure of commanding. But death took its toll on them all.

  Her raven hair hung down to her waist. Soulful green eyes seemed to look right through him. At almost six foot herself, Erin was a few inches short of his height, and they’d faced off many times over differing opinions.

  “You should get some rest. You look tired. Want to crash here tonight?” he asked. His protective instincts ran deep where she was concerned. He wanted her close because he couldn’t help but believe that the person responsible for Blake’s death was closer than any of them thought, and Erin was an inadvertent eyewitness to what happened.

  She shook her head, her answer not unexpected. “No, I’m fine. I . . . well, I needed to get out of the house for a second.” She came close. His nerves hit the panic mode the same way they always did lately when she was near. He had no business feeling th
is way. She was his subordinate.

  Erin stared at him with those haunted eyes and more than ever he wanted to take away her pain. He leaned close and touched his lips to hers. Just for a moment, yet feeling her lips against his was everything he’d dreamed of and her reaction exactly what he’d expected. With eyes wide, she swallowed visibly, stepped back, and made a beeline for the door.

  Jax cringed at his own stupidity and followed after her, opening the door when she fumbled with it. He cleared the frog from his throat. “See how you feel tomorrow. If you’re not up to it, then don’t stress. You can come in the next day or the following week.” He prayed his voice sounded steadier than he felt inside. He’d screwed up. Kissing her was the last thing he should have been doing.

  Erin stepped out into the rainy night and turned to face him once more, her eyes capturing his. Residual doubts lingered in hers. “I want to be part of the investigation. I need to help bring Blake’s killers to justice. I owe him that much.”

  He slowly nodded. “We all do.” Their parting was awkward as usual. After a dozen different scenarios ran through his head, he finally leaned over and hugged her awkwardly. He felt her tense up briefly, then pull away, and his arms fell to his sides.

  A ghost of a smile played on her lips. “See you tomorrow.” She swiveled and headed to her car, but he couldn’t move. His heart hammering, his feet planted in place, he watched her fire the car’s engine and drive away without looking at him.

  Foolish . . . he admonished himself. Why had he acted so unwisely? She needed his friendship. He wanted her love.

  The DC night was warm for late fall, still a chill sped through his frame. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something evil was imminent. With the uneasy feeling refusing to go away, Jax glanced down the street. His neighborhood was a quiet one. Most everyone had lived there for years.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a dark SUV parked a short distance from his house. He didn’t recognize it, and he knew all of his neighbors’ vehicles.