by Misty Evans
Gaining her feet, she edged past the refrigerator and leaned out enough to see the double doors facing the beach. Through the patio window, she could see Tephra’s boat still bobbing out on the water. Her phone buzzed and she ran back to grab it off the floor.
Not again. Cooper’s persistence had bled into the neurotic arena. He was obviously extremely concerned or extremely pissed.
She had to tell him what was going on, for his sake, as well as hers. She and Cal needed help. She wasn’t sure just how far north up the coast they’d traveled, and she knew Cooper couldn’t get there in time, but he’d know some way to help them.
Punching the button, she went back to her lookout spot. Why hadn’t Cal come through the door yet? “Agent Harris,” she said just above a whisper, “Please don’t say anything, just listen. I don’t have much time.”
Maggie was scratching at the bottom of the double doors. Bianca’s nerves went on high alert as she stared, gripping the Glock, and pointing it at the doors. “I’m north of San Diego in a house owned by Emit Petit. Not sure of the exact location, but I’m in trouble. There’s a man trying to kill me and…”
Behind her, she heard a pop and then a squeak…the kitchen door. She whirled around and gasped.
A man with graying red hair and a large nose stood in the doorway. A black leather vest hung on his frame, showing bare arms and heavy tats. His jeans were dark, held up by a big belt buckle. His motorcycle boots were covered in dust.
In his hand was a nasty, black handgun with a silencer on the end. “Hello, sweetheart,” Rory Tephra said.
Bianca dropped her phone.
Chapter Eleven
“Agent Marx?” Cooper said into the phone. From the other end came a clattering noise—she’d dropped her cell. “Bianca!”
The marina buzzed with activity. Two police cars, an ambulance, a bunch of spectators. A pair of EMTs guided a gurney toward their vehicle, a white sheet covering a body discovered dead in a nearby boat.
Across from Cooper sat Bobby in his wheelchair, his dark eyes boring into Cooper while a white cord hung from an earbud in his ear. The computer guru was listening in on the conversation Cooper was having with Bianca from his trusty jacked-up laptop from which he did all his spying.
Or the non-conversation Cooper was having with her as it was. Cooper gripped the phone. Bianca had disappeared and left him hanging. Not like her at all. If anything, since she’d joined the taskforce, she’d been anal about her job, working eighteen-hour days, and going above and beyond on every case he’d handed her.
She hadn’t shown up for a meeting this morning, hadn’t answered repeated calls and texts. Not only from him but from the other taskforce members as well. The last contact had been shortly after 0800 hours with Ronni, his lead FBI undercover operative.
Cooper wasn’t a worrier. He did however have a gut feeling that Bianca was in trouble.
Bobby had traced her phone to the Starbucks down the road from her apartment. The manager inside claimed Bianca was a regular but hadn’t shown up that morning for her daily chai tea latte. He’d seen her in the parking lot, leaving her car to get into a cab.
At the news, Cooper’s gut feeling had turned into full-blown concern.
Agents like Ronni and his right-hand man, Thomas, often broke routine and didn’t always report in on a regular basis. Came with their jobs as undercover operatives. Bianca Marx wasn’t an operative. She was a brainiac with obsessive work habits. He could set his watch by her.
At least she’d answered her phone this time, but the story that had issued from her mouth was so crazy, he wondered if she’d been drinking. “Agent Marx, what is going on?”
In the background, a dog barked, a man grunted, then a loud blast rang out. The noise seemed to explode close to Cooper’s ear and he jerked the phone away.
“Was that a gun shot?” Bobby said.
Sure sounded like it, but before Cooper could get his phone back to his ear and try to find out, another noise came through the speaker…a crunching sound. The line went dead.
“Goddammit,” he swore under his breath, hitting the redial button.
Thomas half-jogged, half-walked from the marina’s office and headed their way. Humidity was high and sweat glistened on the kid’s tan forehead.
Bobby pulled the earbuds from his ear and began furiously typing on his laptop. “Searching for Emit Petit in Southern Cali.”
Who the hell was Emit Petit and why was Bianca at his house? “Did she honestly say someone was trying to kill her?”
Bobby glanced up, met Cooper’s eyes. “You heard correctly.”
Shit.
Thomas stopped next to Cooper’s side and read from a small notebook in his hand. “According to the manager, Cal Reese worked here and lived on a boat docked in slip thirteen.” He pointed to the last slip along the dock. “Guy saw a blond female that fits Bianca’s description talking to Cal around 0800 hours and go on his boat. Never saw her leave, but once the storm came in, he claims he was busy fielding calls and might have missed her exiting. He did catch a glimpse of Cal going on that boat”—Thomas pointed to a dingy houseboat a couple of slips closer to them—“belonging to one Gus Molier, a long-time tenant here at the marina, and leave a minute later. Molier is the guy they hauled out on the gurney.”
Bianca’s cell phone rang. Once, twice, three times. Cooper set his jaw.
“EMTs say Molier’s neck was broken,” Thomas said.
Bobby stopped typing and pinned Thomas with a look. “Tell me the guy took a fall and broke it himself.”
Thomas shook his head. “No official ruling yet, but Molier was lying in bed. A friend came to meet him for breakfast and found him.”
“You don’t break your neck lying in bed,” Bobby said.
That left murder.
Not many men could kill a person by breaking their neck. A SEAL could.
Cooper knew everything about his taskforce members. Things they didn’t know he knew. Even though Bianca never spoke about her personal life, he knew she was in the middle of a divorce and her Navy SEAL husband had recently returned to the States holding his ass and not much else after a blown mission.
SEALs had enormous mental, physical, and emotional reserves, but they were still human. Had Cal Reese snapped, and say, oh, killed his neighbor and kidnapped his soon-to-be ex-wife?
Bianca’s phone went to voicemail. Again. Cooper nearly threw his own phone across the marina.
When she hadn’t answered multiple calls and texts earlier that day, he’d had no choice but to hunt down Cal Reese. Except upon arrival, he and the SCVC Taskforce had found this mess.
“Got ʼem,” Bobby said, staring at his screen. “Emit Petit. Lives and works in L.A. Has a second home on the beach a few miles south of there.”
L.A. was a solid two hours north without traffic. Cooper disconnected and pocketed the phone. “Call the local cops and have them send cars to both addresses immediately. Get the Coast Guard searching for Reese’s boat. Warn all of them that they may be dealing with a volatile military-trained expert.” He motioned at Thomas. “You’re with me.”
Thomas nodded and headed for Cooper’s SUV. Bobby was already dialing his phone. “You want an APB for Reese?”
There’s a man trying to kill me… “You bet your ass I do. If they locate him, they are to hold him until I get there.”
Bobby’s wheelchair hummed to life. “Coop, hold up. There’s something you should know.”
Cooper stopped and turned back. “What?”
“It’s Reese. My source inside the DoD says he’s got PTSD. Could be dangerous. His superiors believe he’s responsible for the deaths of three men during his last mission. There’s a military investigation going on.”
The day just got better and better. “Find that bastard.”
“Coop!” Bobby stopped him again. “I know what you’re thinking, but don’t go off half-cocked. It sounds like Bianca got on his boat willingly, and you have no proof that she’s
still with him, or that he murdered Molier.”
He didn’t have proof, but he had his gut, and his gut said that was definitely a gunshot he’d heard on the other end. “She might already be dead, Bobby.”
His friend’s expression darkened. He shut his laptop and engaged his wheelchair, following Thomas to Cooper’s SUV. Bobby had great respect for the NSA agent and her enormous brain. “You’re going to need me. I’m coming with you.”
Bianca’s phone lay semi-crushed on the kitchen floor. Several sorry, weak buzzing sounds had come from it before it died completely.
She’d fired the Glock, aiming straight for Tephra as he went to crush the phone with his booted foot. She’d seen by the shocked expression on his face, he hadn’t expected her to be armed. Too bad her aim was so bad, she couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn.
Or a man.
He’d raised his hands as if to surrender at the exact same moment she’d pulled the trigger. His boot was already on its way down to smash her phone, the bullet nicking his upper left arm and sending him spinning sideways.
He hit the breakfast bar, falling as she pulled the trigger again and the second bullet went screaming across the few feet of space between them and landed in the wall above the stove.
He’d laughed—laughed—and hid behind the cover of the bar. “I just want to talk, sweetheart. I have something important to tell you and I can’t unless you and I are face-to-face. There are people watching both of us, monitoring our every phone call, our every move.”
Talk? Bianca’s ears rang from the gunshots. She must have heard him wrong.
Maggie, bless her doggie heart, attacked him, the sound of his laughter dying in his throat and morphing into a howl of pain. Holding the gun with both hands, Bianca moved around the end of the bar to see him.
Maggie had sunk her teeth into his right calf and was holding on for dear life. Tephra tried to hit her nose with a fist, missed, and hit her in her ear instead. The dog didn’t even flinch.
But then Tephra raised his eyes and saw Bianca standing there with the Glock trained on his chest. “You won’t shoot me in cold blood,” he said.
A trickle of sweat ran down the back of her neck. She firmed her hands on the gun. “Already did.”
His shoulder was bleeding, a steady stream running from the open wound, down his arm, dripping off his elbow onto the floor.
He raised a finger and touched his cheek. “Tit for tat, then, eh, love? You and your dog have gotten me good, but hold up a minute. I didn’t come in here to harm you.”
Right. Where was his other hand? Realization dawned…he was going for a gun. The taunting was just a distraction.
“Maggie!” she yelled, but Tephra moved faster than she expected.
“Stop! I’m not going to…”
She fired, he dodged, the rest of his sentence lost to her as she was hit by a moving train.
Or a tanker.
Or maybe a force of nature.
Big arms went around her, taking her to the ground and knocking the air from her lungs. Déjà vu. She couldn’t be sure what happened, but she found herself on the floor as gunshots rang out and she fought to breathe.
The weight that sent her sprawling and now covered her wasn’t any of the things she’d imagined. Cal lay on top of her, firing a big, black gun right through the bar’s cabinetry. The next thing she knew, he was rolling both of them away from the bar, gaining his feet and dragging her up with him.
He grabbed her arm and hauled her out of the kitchen, running through the living room and to the set of double doors that led to the beach.
Tephra yelled; Maggie barked. She and Cal hit the door. He threw it open but she looked back and called for the dog. “Maggie!”
The dog came bounding after them as Cal shoved Bianca through the opening and forced her to crouch against the house. One hand gripped the back of her head as he put his mouth to her ear. “Stay low and get to the street.” His cheek brushed hers, his warm breath tickling her ear. “Two blocks down is an old yellow Chevelle. That’s our car. Get in it and stay low.”
“What about you?”
“This ends here.” He pushed her to her feet and nudged her to run. “I’ll catch up in a minute.”
“I need my phone.”
“What?” He looked at her like she was daft.
“There’s sensitive information on that phone that Tephra could retrieve. I’m talking national security stuff, Cal. I need that phone. It’s on the kitchen floor.”
“Why would you be stupid enough to keep top secret info on your goddamn phone?”
The words stung, but she knew none of this made sense to him and there was no time to explain. “Don’t let him get his hands on that phone.”
The light shifted in his eyes. An indeterminate, subtle change. Understanding. “What did you do, Bianca?”
Before she could answer, his face hardened. “Go. Get out of here.”
She didn’t want to leave him, but he turned ready to leave her. Grabbing him by the arm, she tugged him back and kissed him. Right square on the lips. He’d been her hero since she was a gawky seven-year-old, and he still was.
He drew back, surprise on his face, eyes searching hers. Then he grabbed her by the back of the head and pulled her in for another kiss. She didn’t resist, even though her logical brain told her it was foolhardy to be kissing at a time like this.
His lips were warm and firm, pressing against her in slow, but oh, so familiar caress. Instinctively, she closed her eyes. Her heart, already racing, skipped a beat, and an aching sensation throbbed inside her chest. All she wanted to do was throw her arms around Cal’s neck and never let him go.
But this was real life. This was Cal, Mr. Navy SEAL. No matter how good the kiss felt, no matter how long it had been since they’d had such a heated, sexy mingling of their lips, he wasn’t swept away by it like she was.
He broke the kiss and stroked his thumb across her jaw. “I’ll get the phone,” he said, his voice a touch ragged. The next second, he disappeared into the house, the sound of the deadbolt clicking into place.
Chapter Twelve
He was alone in a house with a killer.
Cover wasn’t hard to find with the oversized, expensive furniture, but the open-concept layout was hardly ideal. Cal scooted next to a tall, solid antique armoire that gave him a decent hiding place and went still. The heavy wood of the piece was probably the only item in the room that would stop a small caliber bullet.
His H&K felt solid in his hand. The house seemed too quiet now in the aftermath of the altercation. The sun was sinking low in the West, golden light shining brightly through the picturesque windows and highlighting cherry undertones in the hardwood floors.
Cal wasn’t sure why the man hadn’t taken a shot at him as he’d hustled B out the door. He’d made sure his body was a wall between her and the assassin, making himself a perfect target.
A normal person might believe from the stillness in the house that the intruder had left. Cal’s finely-tuned senses told him differently. No matter how quiet, how stealthy another human being could be, he could sense them. Their very presence gave off energy—a subtle pressure to the air—and combined with the fight or flight mechanism in their brains, they left an impression like a ghost. Hard to see or hear, but there all the same.
Cal waited.
“You are certainly complicating things,” the man called from the kitchen a few minutes later. “I know I scared her with all that talk about killing her, but that was for Uncle Sam’s ears. Can’t be too careful. They’re listening, you know. Watching me. Watching you. I have to make it look good. Truth is, I only want to talk to your wife, not kill her.”
Was this Rory Tephra? Cal had seen pictures of the man from his SEAL days, but the brief glimpse he’d caught of him in the kitchen didn’t match up to the image in Cal’s memory.
“Is that why you shot at her? Newsflash: women don’t feel like talking after a bullet grazes their cheek.”
The man’s voice echoed with pride off the kitchen’s high ceilings. “If I’d wanted her dead, Reese, I wouldn’t have missed that shot and you know it.”
But he had missed—barely, and because of Maggie. “What game are you playing?”
“A serious one. Marx is not the only target on this mission.”
“Gus Molier was a target?”
“Who?”
“My marina neighbor, you bastard. Why’d you have to kill him?”
A pause. “His real name was Colin Mills. A slick little assassin known for his serial killer tendencies. He doesn’t shoot his target—he kidnaps them, does his torture shit, and dumps their body in the ocean. He’s the go-to man for the Russians, but I’ve heard the Chinese have hired him a time or two. Good thing I showed up when I did, or you might have been fish food.”
What is he talking about? Gus wouldn’t hurt a fly.
This man was psychotic. And injured. Was he buying time with this conversation? Cal listened closely for any sounds he was moving around, trying to stem his bleeding shoulder or escape out the kitchen door.
He heard nothing except the hum of the fridge. Through the silence, the faint high pitch of a police siren alerted him to approaching trouble.
“Enough of the bullshit,” he called. “Who are you and what do you want?”
“You know who I am.” The siren grew louder. The man issued a heavy sigh and Cal heard shuffling. “Seriously? You called 911? What kind of SEAL are you, Reese?”
“I didn’t call anyone.”
The slightest squeak of rubber on tile. “Well, unfortunately, there’s no time to explain now, tadpole. I gotta run.”
“Wait!” Cal peeked out from the armoire, gun raised. No one. Where did he go?
Cal crept forward, past the fireplace and toward the kitchen archway.
The door stood open, the kitchen empty. From the outside, the siren grew louder, a second one adding to the cacophony.
Blood droplets made a path across the floor from the island to the door. Cal glanced at the spot where Bianca’s crushed phone had been.