Carter rolled to the side. He kept his arm wrapped around her and dragged her deeper into the shelter of the hollow beneath the solid oak desk.
“From the sound of your story, they need to make this look like a case of one of my guys getting a little trigger happy.” He sat up as best he could in the confined space and reached inside. This time he didn’t retrieve a business card, but a matte black handgun. Ally leaned back at the sight of the deadly weapon, pressing against the side of the desk.
“That means two or three bullets at most, all tightly grouped,” he continued explaining. “The last thing they want is to spray the room with bullets. Fire fights are notoriously hard to explain away.”
It sounded like he was speaking from experience. “So what do we do?”
“We give them exactly what they’re trying to avoid.” Before she could ask exactly what that entailed, he tapped something in his right ear—a nearly invisible piece of plastic that she’d somehow missed before—and brought his wrist near his mouth. “Rhys. Jake. We have a situation on the second floor. Shots fired. Suspect Fuller’s security detail. I need cover.”
He rattled off the words quickly, efficiently. This obviously wasn’t this guy’s first rodeo.
“Your guys from downstairs?” she asked, when he lowered his arm.
Carter nodded.
“You sure you want to get them involved in this?” Ally asked.
He shot her a wicked smile.
“They’d be pissed if I left them out.” He put a hand on the bend of her knee. “Don’t worry, this is the sort of thing we’re trained for.”
She guessed that was supposed to reassure her. The truth was, Ally didn’t think she could handle any more blood on her hands. Not his. Not his friends’. Not even the guys’ out in the hall.
Apparently, Fuller’s men didn’t suffer from her guilty conscience. A second later, Ally jolted at the chime of more glass fragments falling to the floor, followed by the sound of the blinds rustling. They were going for the inside door handle. They were coming in.
Which meant she and Carter had to find a way out. All other thoughts fled Ally’s head.
She sucked in a lungful of air and held it, somehow afraid that her breath would be the sound that gave them away.
Carter gripped his gun with both hands. He leaned forward on his haunches. He waited until they heard the unmistakable creak of the door opening. Then he sprung up from under the desk. Ally covered her ears as three deafening bangs in a row echoed off the walls. Then, just as fast, Carter was back down by her side.
She stared at him with wide eyes. She tried to talk but her brain hadn’t recovered enough from the shock to form words. “D-did you k-k—”
“Kill them?” Carter shook his head once. “Just gave them some incentive to stay outside.”
“We need to find a way out of here.” Ally’s chest suddenly felt tight. She was certain her throat was closing up. She tried to breathe but her lungs seized, only allowing her tiny, quick gulps of air.
She was pretty sure Carter said something but she didn’t catch it. She was too busy hyperventilating and scanning the room for any possible escape route. It was useless. There was just the one door and the bank of shattered windows that led to the hallway. Even if they managed to get past Fuller’s thugs, there would only be more downstairs waiting for them. No matter what they did, they were doomed.
Carter wrapped his hand around the nape of her neck, and tilted her head back, forcing her eyes to meet his.
“I know you’re scared, but I need you to calm down and focus. Everything is going to be fine,” he said. His voice seemed unusually calm given their dire circumstances. “I have a plan. But we have to wait for backup. Okay?”
“But—”
He pulled her face an inch closer. His eye contact intensified, and Ally managed to pull in a long, deep breath.
“Okay?” he repeated.
“O-okay.”
Carter looked into her eyes for a second longer before nodding and letting her go. “It won’t be long.”
A second later, she heard the far away sound of a door crashing against a wall. There was some shouting and then a few rounds of gunfire. Ally flinched with every shot.
“That’s our cue,” Carter said, jumping out from under the shelter of the desk. He stayed low as he moved across the room toward the window.
Ally pivoted to follow him, but as she turned her head a glint of reflected light caught her eye. It was coming right from where Carter had been, at the very bottom of the desk near the leg. She had to lay flat on the ground to get a better look at it.
There was something wedged in the gap by the desk leg.
Nobody looks low enough.
“Harvey, you crafty bastard,” Ally said.
She scraped at the object with her thumb. It didn’t budge. Whatever it was, it was wedged in there good.
“Come on,” Carter shouted from across the office.
Ally was aware that the chaos was still swirling around her—the occasional pop of gunfire, the yelling, the urgent need to escape. But she was pretty sure she’d found what she’d come for. The reason a man had died, and Ally would be damned if she was going to leave this office without it.
She clawed at the metal sliver. Slowly, it started to come loose.
“Now!” Carter called out behind her.
“One sec,” she whispered, more to herself than to him.
Ally pinched the hidden device between two fingers, tight enough to crack a nail clear down to the bed, and yanked as hard as she could. She got a little extra help as Carter’s hand wrapped around her ankle and he dragged her out from under Harvey’s desk.
The object popped free, and Ally wrapped her fingers around it tight.
“We’re all out of seconds,” Carter said, lifting her to her feet.
“Fortunately, I don’t need any more.” She opened her fingers and looked down at her hand. A small silver flash drive lay in the center of her palm.
“Is that what you came for?” he asked.
A smile spread across Ally’s face. “I think so.”
“Good. Now let’s get the hell out of here.”
Carter pivoted and picked up Harvey’s desk chair. He went over to the window that already had a single round bullet hole in the center, and hit it hard. A spider web of cracks spread out across the glass. He leaned back and smacked it again. The window splintered, raining glass down to the sidewalk below.
Ally poked her head out the window. Her knees went weak at just how far away the sidewalk was.
“That’s your plan?” She pulled her head back in and stared at him like he was a madman. “Break our legs on the fall? It has to be thirty feet to the street.”
“We’re on the second floor,” he said. “It’s more like twelve. And I’m not planning on jumping.”
“Then what are you planning?”
He gave a pointed look at the light post. “Sliding.”
Ally sucked in a deep breath as she stared at the black square metal post that stood about five feet away from the remains of the window. It wasn’t her first choice, but she had to admit it was a hell of a lot better than jumping or going out the way she came in.
One minute of suck and you’re out of this mess. Oh, but what a sucky minute it was going to be. Still, there was nothing to do but be done with it.
Ally gathered her long skirt and tucked the hem into her neckline, exposing her thighs. She had a feeling she was going to need as much grip on that post as she could get.
Carter held her hand as she stepped onto the window ledge. His hands circled her waist, steadying her as she leaned out to grasp the pole. Ally drew in a steadying breath as she wrapped one hand, then the other, around the pole. Her body was committed now, but her brain still needed a little push.
She got it a half second later when she heard another couple of shots pinging off the hallway walls behind her. She held tight and propelled her legs forward, wrapping them around the
awkwardly shaped pole. She didn’t slide as much as she inched her way down, clinging for dear life with every move. She muttered a grateful prayer the moment her feet hit solid earth.
Two seconds later, Carter was by her side. Obviously, he didn’t have the same trouble with heights. She was beginning to think that he didn’t have trouble with anything.
***
“Do you have a car?” Carter didn’t wait for his mystery woman to answer before linking his arm with hers and steering her toward the parking lot.
There usually weren’t too many people out on the streets of downtown Sacramento this far past five o’clock, but Carter still spied a couple of stragglers staring at them as they hurried down the sidewalk and away from the pile of broken glass. It didn’t matter that they’d had a small audience for their descent from the second story. Carter had a feeling that someone had already called the police. Which meant he had only minutes to get this woman to safety.
“Yeah,” she said, as they rounded the corner of the office building and stepped into the parking lot. She pointed him in the direction of a battered white Toyota Camry. She went over to the driver’s side door and pulled the key out of her running shoe.
“You shouldn’t go home tonight,” he said.
She opened the door but didn’t get inside. She looked at him as her face fell. “Crap. I guess that wouldn’t be a very good idea, would it?”
Carter slowly shook his head. He didn’t like being the one to shatter her illusion that her troubles were somehow over. The truth was, they were probably just beginning. By the looks of it, she was totally unprepared for the storm that was headed her way.
And it would be totally irresponsible for him to throw her headlong into it unprotected, especially now that he knew what Buck Fuller was capable of.
“Do you have someplace to go?” he asked.
She thought for a second then nodded. “Yeah, I think so.”
“Good. Give me a minute, I’m going to get one of my men to keep watch over you tonight.”
Carter wished that he could be the one to look after her, but he needed to stay and face the police. That didn’t mean she’d be leaving alone.
He knew she’d fight him on going anywhere with Rhys or Jake, but he could always call in another one of his men. Mason Wright would work just fine. The ladies loved Mason.
Then again, maybe Mason wouldn’t be so perfect after all. But he’d have to do. Carter would just give him strict instructions about how important—and professional—this protection detail was.
“Looks like we don’t need a minute,” she said, her eyes focusing on a spot behind Carter. “Here comes one now.”
Carter turned around. This time she wasn’t lying. Jake strode across the parking lot. He took a few steps closer to meet him, and heard a car door slam shut behind him, then an engine sputtering to life. He turned around just in time to see the old Toyota lurching forward, the tires spinning faster and faster as she headed for the street.
Carter watched her go, committing her license plate to memory as she peeled around the corner and into traffic.
“Let me guess, that was our mystery girl,” Jake asked, coming to a stop at Carter’s side.
“It was.”
“The one you said wasn’t a problem?” There was a note of laughter in Jake’s voice. He always did enjoy pressing his luck.
Carter cocked his head to the side. He knew her face, had her license plate number, and knew her profession. She wouldn’t be difficult to track down.
And that’s what had him worried. If he could track her down then so could Fuller.
“How are we inside?” Carter changed the subject.
“Not as bad as you might imagine. No casualties. No injuries,” Jake reported. “We fired several warning shots. The targets returned fire but, the second you two were out of the room, they stopped. Right now they’re insisting it was all just a big misunderstanding.”
“Is that right?” Carter finally turned around and started walking back toward Fuller’s building. “Have we had contact with the congressman?”
“Negative. Rhys is concentrating on the two men from the hallway.”
Carter nodded. Rhys was the best damn interrogator he’d ever seen in his life. The man could convince an angel to rat out God, but there would be limits to the methods he could use on the men that had shot at them, not to mention a serious lack of time. Even now, the faint wail of sirens sounded in the distance.
Carter was interested to see how the rest of the evening’s drama played out. It seemed the first act hadn’t gone the way Fuller had hoped, and Carter couldn’t wait to see how he tried to talk his way out of it. He had a feeling he was in for a long night.
But that didn’t mean he couldn’t multi-task. He pulled out his phone and went through the contacts until he came to Charlie Keswick.
She answered on the third ring. Carter could barely make out her voice over the blare of music. At least that meant she wasn’t spending another night burning the midnight oil back at the office.
“Hey, Captain.” Her voice sounded cheery. Carter felt a momentary stab of guilt that he was going to shatter all that good will in a heartbeat. “What’cha need?”
All of his employees worked hard for him, but nobody put their heart into it quite like Charlie. She deserved a fun night out. And he was about to wrench that away from her.
“I need you to dig into someone for me.”
There was a long pause on the other end. Only the constant, pulsing beat in the background let Carter know that the call hadn’t been dropped.
“Of course, you do,” she finally said.
“Is it going to be a problem?”
“No problem at all.” Her voice had dropped an octave, but the music behind her was getting fainter. She was already leaving the club.
Carter rattled off everything he knew about the disappearing reporter. “You got all that?”
“Yep,” Charlie said.
“Thanks,” Carter said, pushing open the front door of the office building as half a dozen cop cars—lights flashing and sirens blazing—pulled up to the front curb. “I owe you one.”
“Yeah, you do.”
Chapter Three
“I think I’m going to need an extra shot in that latte today, Peter,” Ally said, as she leaned against the counter at her local coffee shop, CafeNation. “Better make it two extra.”
Peter’s pierced brows arched as a smile pulled at his lips. “Long night?”
“You could say that.” Ally pushed herself away from the counter long enough to pull her wallet out of her purse. The place was always packed this time of morning, and there was quite a line forming behind her.
“Is that a good or a bad thing?”
It’s a ‘worst night of my life’ thing.
Ally shrugged noncommittally. “It’s a quad latte kind of thing.”
“Gotcha.” Peter winked behind his thick-rimmed hipster glasses. “Do you want anything to eat with that?”
Ally shot a glance over at the pastry case. She should say yes. She hadn’t eaten anything since lunch yesterday. But the truth was, her stomach was still roiling with acid from the night before, and the thought of stuffing anything down there only made the bile rise further up into her throat.
“I’ll have a blueberry muffin,” a voice sounded by her side. Ally turned to find Carter Macmillan standing next to her. “And that Danish looks tasty.”
Peter raised his brows. “Is he with you?”
Ally’s stomach churned anew.
“He is now,” she settled on. It was easier than causing a scene.
She’d just have to get rid of him later…again.
“Let me guess,” Peter said with a mischievous twinkle in his eye. “This is Mr. Long Night.”
Ally flashed him a tight smile. “The pastries, Peter.”
“Sure thing,” he said with a wink, before grabbing the tongs and heading off.
“Mr. Long Night?” Carter did
n’t bother hiding the amused grin that spread across his face.
“What are you doing here, Mr. Macmillan?”
“Getting some breakfast,” he said.
Ally pursed her lips and shot him a hard look. She was too damned tired for his attempts at humor.
“Well, in that case, the line starts back there,” she said, tilting her head toward the front door.
He gave a lazy shrug of his broad shoulders. “I figured that after last night the least you owed me was a muffin.”
Ally let out a long sigh. “Why do I get the feeling that’s not the only thing you think I owe you?”
The corners of his eyes lifted with his lips. “Well, I wasn’t going to bring up the seventy dollars you promised me, but—”
“Fifty,” Ally corrected him.
“That’s not how I remember it,” he said, slipping his hands into his pockets and rocking back slightly on his heels.
As much as she hated to admit it, he looked good. He was dressed very much like last night. The only real change was he’d swapped out one perfectly pressed black suit for a dark grey one. But other than that he was virtually the same. His short brown hair was still perfect. There were no dark circles under his eyes, no droop to his lids. He looked awake and alert, and more amazingly, in a good mood.
The man wasn’t human. That was the only explanation she could come up with.
“The extra twenty was for putting your arm around me…which you never did,” she said.
“Come on, I got rid of the men who were following you.”
“They were your men.”
“Still, it’s got to count for something.”
“Yeah,” she said, as Peter walked back and put down two small brown bags in front of them. “It counts for a muffin and Danish apparently.”
She started to hand Peter her bankcard, but Carter was faster. He pulled a bill out of his pocket and slid it across the counter.
“Keep the change,” he said to a very impressed Peter, who had just earned the biggest tip of the day.
Ally headed over to the crowd that surrounded the drink handoff platform as Carter swooped up the bags. A moment later, he joined her, standing maddeningly close to her side.
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