Two Evils

by Christina Moore

  The pain of her words burned hot for a long moment as they stared at one another. He’d thought this might be the beginning of something great, but he’d been way off the mark. More than that, he’d been a damn fool for thinking it was even remotely possible for the iciest bitch in the world to have feelings for anyone.

  John ignored the tiny voice in his head trying to tell him she had loved once—loved and lost. That she might possibly be developing feelings for him that scared the hell out of her and was pulling back out of fear. He didn’t care. She’d just demeaned what they had shared like it was dirty and shameful.

  He felt a hard mask fall over his face as the fire in his chest was drowned and turned to ice. “Very well, Miss Ryan… It’s good to know where we stand. I think maybe I will grab a shower—washing away the last few hours sounds like a damn good idea all of a sudden. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be back shortly.”

  Turning on his heel, John marched stiffly back to the bathroom, where he slammed the door shut on both Billie and his emotions. Jerking his pants off and throwing them into a rumpled pile by the door, he reached behind the shower curtain and turned the faucet on, setting the water on hot. When he stepped under the spray it turned out to be several degrees hotter than he liked, but he didn’t turn it down. Better to be distracted by scalding hot water than to let his mind wander where he no longer wished it to go.

  When he got out ten minutes later, he crossed from the bathroom to the bedroom without looking. His movements as he pulled on clean clothes were stilted and jerky, and he realized he was still feeling the burn of anger.

  Suck it up, John, he told himself sharply. She’s not worth it.

  Dressed and ready to go not quite twenty minutes after he’d woken, John walked out into the living room to retrieve his gun and holster, which had been removed in the initial frenzy. The memory of that heated insanity clawed through his indifference to torture him, but he quickly slammed the door on it. He was no longer interested in it. Or her. Now, he just wanted to put a lid on this and move on.

  The fact that Billie was already gone came as little surprise. He merely shook his head, retrieved his gun, and secured it to his belt. Then he grabbed his suit jacket and headed out to find her.

  

  Billie instructed the taxi to take her to Claude Moore Colonial Farm, a park she and the guys on the team had visited during leave on many occasions. Stepping back into history, into times so much more peaceful and simple, had helped each of them decompress, especially after a difficult mission.

  Here, she had little doubt, she would find Gabe. Wayne and Darren would be gone to another of their retreats, but Gabe, as he had said, had stayed behind to watch in case she returned. He would not be able to go home, as Wainright no doubt had his house under surveillance. But here… here he could easily disguise himself and blend in among the tourists.

  She had hoped that walking through the park and seeing all the homesteads that had been built in 1771 style would serve as a distraction. That the smells and sounds of a time long gone would keep the memory of the pain she’d inflicted so unnecessarily on John from returning to her mind’s eye. That she would not be forced to remember the hurt that had filled his eyes.

  Billie’s hope was in vain. She remembered all too well the harsh words and callous attitude designed to inflict maximum damage. John wouldn’t think so, but it was for the best. She was hurting him now in order not to hurt him later. Because sometime in the last two days—she didn’t know why or when—he’d begun to care about her. She’d seen the truth of it in his eyes. He might not even have realized it or admitted it to himself yet, but she’d become important to him, in spite of her having threatened to kill him on more than one occasion. It could happen that fast—or so she’d heard. It hadn’t happened that quickly with Travis, but then Travis had recognized he needed to become her friend first, to earn her trust, before he had even a remote chance at winning her heart.

  Something told her John was different. He would want it all, and want it all now. But she just couldn’t give it to him. Her heart wasn’t ready. It might never be ready to take that big a risk ever again.

  So, yeah… Better to push him away now rather than have him resent her down the road for not being able to give as much as she took.

  “Something tells me your mind’s not on the history.”

  Billie only shook her head as Gabe fell into step beside her smoothly, as if he had been walking with her all along. She pulled her hand from her pocket when he crooked his elbow in her direction and slid her arm through, leaning her head down on his shoulder as she had done countless times before.

  “Care to share?” he asked softly.

  A sniffle escaped her and tears stung the back of her eyes. No, damn it! she chastised herself. She would not be weak. She would not cry for what simply couldn’t be. It was pointless.

  Her friend seemed to sense that she was on the verge of a breakdown, for he said then, “Nevermind, She-Devil. I don’t want to hear about your girlie shit anyway.”

  Looking up, she saw him smiling down at her. She saw sympathy in his eyes, but not pity. He knew of her loss, and perhaps he thought her simply overwhelmed with memories of Travis because she’d not been home in so long. Billie figured it was best to let him, if that was the case. No need to burden him with her problems when he had so many of his own to deal with.

  Drawing a breath, she forced herself to put her guilt and thoughts of John aside. She stood straight but kept her arm looped through Gabe’s as she said, “I met the general this morning.”

  “Is that so?” Gabe asked curiously.

  Billie nodded. “Yeah. You said he talked a good game, but you didn’t tell me what a dick he was.”

  Her companion snorted derisively, then said, “Sorry, but I figured it best you learn that particularly disheartening bit of information for yourself.”

  “Speaking of disheartening…” Billie said, turning and leading Gabe over to an empty bench along the path. “Did you know that Eddie’s kid sister is working at the Pentagon?”

  The expression on his face was one of genuine surprise. “Becky’s working there? Doing what?”

  She shrugged. “Some sort of clerical work. I didn’t stick around to ask because I was within moments of going back to Wainright’s office to wring his fucking neck.”

  Gabe chuckled. “I know you think he’s a dick—and I agree, wholeheartedly—but even I don’t want to kill him.”

  “They don’t know, Gabe.”

  He frowned. “I don’t understand. Who doesn’t know what?”

  “Eddie’s family. They don’t know he’s been killed, Thunderhead,” she said slowly, watching a dark cloud of fury fill his expression at her words.

  “Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.”

  Billie nodded. “I know. You can imagine my shock when 1st Lt. Stevens—who must get her looks from their mom, because she looks nothing like Wildchild—not only introduced herself to me as his sister, which I’d sadly forgotten he had one it’s been so long since I’ve seen the kid, but asked me if I’d heard from Eddie recently because she hadn’t.”

  “You probably forgot about Becky because you didn’t hang with us as much as you used to on downtime after you bugged out for the spook squad,” Gabe muttered absently as he turned away from her.

  Sighing heavily, she slumped against the back of the bench. “I’m sorry,” she said softly.

  He looked back at her. “What have you got to be sorry for? It’s that dumbfuck Wainright that should be sorry. How the hell can he justify not notifying next of kin?”

  “I’m sorry I haven’t been here for you guys this last year. I’m sorry I’ve been so disconnected from everyone. Maybe if I’d been here—”

  Gabe’s hand found hers and gave it a gentle squeeze, his face as he looked at her devoid of the anger of a moment ago. In its place was love and compassion. “None of us knows how we’re going to react to losing someone who means the world to us, Billie,”
he said softly. “I don’t know where you’re been, mentally or physically, but it doesn’t matter because you’re home now. Don’t blame yourself for the mess the guys and I have gotten ourselves into.”

  “If I’d been here, I could have kicked some sense into your asses,” Billie said.

  Grinning, Gabe squeezed her hand again and then released it. “That you probably would have,” he conceded. “But seriously, don’t put any of this on you. We made our bunks, now we have to sleep in them.”

  He pushed to his feet then and paced back and forth in front of the bench. “This business with Wainright not telling Eddie’s family that their son and brother is dead… That’s bullshit. There’s no sense in it—what’s the point of keeping it from them? It’s not like he can keep it under wraps indefinitely.”

  “That’s it!” Billie cried, jumping to her feet with renewed vigor. “Something about this whole situation has been bugging me from the start. Something I could never put my finger on. But that has to be it—Wainright hasn’t told Eddie’s family because he’s hiding something.”

  “Of course he’s hiding something—the way he died. He doesn’t want it to get out,” Gabe suggested.

  Shaking her head, Billie now began to pace, a finger tapping her chin as she walked. “No, it’s not just that. Eddie’s death could easily be attributed to a training accident if he just wanted to cover up why he was shot,” she said. “There’s something else going on here. Something Wainright doesn’t want anyone to know about.”

  “You know, you could be right,” Gabe said after a moment. “I guess IQ-56 didn’t work on me. I don’t feel any smarter than I did before.”

  “Just as long as you don’t feel any dumber, Thunderhead,” Billie replied.

  “Only for saying yes to begin with, She-Devil,” he returned.

  By mute agreement, they began walking along the path again. For a long moment they were silent, each occupied with their own thoughts as they looked around at the demonstrations of life in 18th century Virginia.

  Gabe sighed. “What are we going to do, Billie?”

  “First things first: You guys have to come in. Not necessarily to Bolling,” she added quickly when he looked about to protest. “But if you’re truly worried about IQ-56 doing to you what you believe it did to Eddie, then you all need to be under round-the-clock medical surveillance. Even you have to agree that’s the safest option.”

  His responding nod was clearly reluctant. “I know,” he said. “I don’t like feeling like a damn bomb on a timer, waiting to go off on the unsuspecting public. So in the interests of public safety, yeah—we gotta come in. But if you’re right and the general is up to something shady, then in the interests of the team’s safety, I don’t want it to be anywhere near him.”

  “I don’t either,” Billie agreed. “I need some time to come up with a plan. Go ahead and go back to wherever it is you’ve been hiding out during the day—and no, I’m not going to ask you where.”

  “Of course not. You have to maintain plausible deniability if this goes south. Even if you did ask, I wouldn’t tell you. I wouldn’t put you at risk like that,” Gabe said.

  Billie looked up at her friend and smiled. “I know you wouldn’t. If you come by the house again tonight, I should have something for you. Hell, I might even save you a steak.”

  “Oh, I’m there. You sure know the way to a man’s heart, Billie Ryan,” Gabe said with a grin.

  “I know that the quickest way to a man’s heart is a knife between the third and fourth rib,” she countered with a nonchalant shrug.

  Gabe laughed. “Such sweet and deadly words from such a cleverly disguised—and dangerous—package.”

  “I aim to please,” Billie said with a grin. “I’d better go before my CIA shadow puts the local LEOs on my tail.”

  An image of her and John in his bed flashed before her mind’s eye and she forcibly dismissed it. Forced herself to put aside the mixed feelings of warmth and guilt that accompanied it. It’s for his own good, she reminded herself.

  “What have you got a shadow for?” Gabe asked.

  “The general apparently couldn’t find me on his own. He had to go to the CIA for help in tracking me down,” she replied. “And even my former colleagues didn’t have it easy.”

  “You always did know how to play hard to get, She-Devil.”

  He had stopped walking by then. Billie kept going but turned around to face him, walking backward as she said, “When a woman is hard to find, Thunderhead, it’s probably because she doesn’t want to be found.”

  With that, she turned again and disappeared into the crowd.

  

  Locating a missing woman (who wasn’t really missing) without raising any flags was a pain in the ass. He’d placed several calls to known associates, as well as her father and brothers…and gotten nowhere. Friends hadn’t seen her—had no idea she was even in town—and her family hadn’t set eyes on her since last night or that morning. No, he assured the latter, there was nothing wrong. They had merely separated to explore different avenues of investigation, but Billie had neglected to leave a number at which she could be reached.

  John hated having to lie to the Ryans, but he’d had no choice.

  He needed to see her. Not because he wanted her body again, although that was certainly true. In spite of her rejection, despite his every effort to forget he could still taste her mouth on his tongue—could still feel the tight, slick walls of her womanhood around his cock as he buried himself deep inside her.

  The memory was making him hard even now, damn his traitorous body to hell. He didn’t want or need to be thinking about what it had been like making love to Billie. She didn’t want him anymore—she’d made that abundantly clear. He’d been little more than a distraction, a means to scratch an itch.

  He’d been a fool. Whatever he thought he’d seen in her eyes back in St. Thomas had been a figment of his imagination.

  Looking at the display on his new cell phone again, which he’d been forced to purchase no thanks to Andre Sardetsky, he saw that it was after six. John looked up at her father’s house and wondered where in the hell Billie was for the umpteenth time. Where had she gone? What had she been doing?

  Was she safe?

  That last thought was another one that had put him on edge, and had led to his sitting in front of Thomas Ryan’s house like he was on a damn stakeout. Surely she hadn’t forgotten the two attempts on her life by a Russian hit squad? Certainly they’d been poor attempts given she was still alive, but the fact that the Sardetskys had a contract out on her meant they’d keep trying until they succeeded. Billie was in danger every minute she was exposed.

  And every minute that went by and he didn’t see her, his concern for her increased tenfold.

  At 6:23 p.m., a taxi cab rolled up to the curb in front of the Ryan address. Relief flooded through him to see Billie sitting alive and well in the back seat. Annoyance quickly followed, and as soon as she’d exited the vehicle and paid her fare, he pushed the door to the Charger open.

  “Where the hell have you been?” he demanded as he slapped his car door shut behind him.

  Billie looked up as the cab drove away, a scowl descending on her features. “Since when do I have to answer to you, Agent Courtney?” she asked.

  “Since a fucking Russian hit squad tried to kill us both—twice,” John replied hotly as he crossed the street…at the same time that one of her brothers happened to open the front door.

  “Billie, what is he talking about?”

  She whirled to face the newcomer, who was joined by a younger version of himself on the front stoop. “Andy, it’s nothing,” she said, looking over her shoulder to glare at him.

  John narrowed his eyes in response before turning his attention to the two men now stalking toward them down the front walk. “Sure as hell didn’t sound like ‘nothing’ to me,” Andy said, a frown on his face. “What did he mean about a Russian hit squad?”

  “Trust me, An
dy, its better you don’t know,” Billie said in a vain attempt to deflect his concern.

  “Bullshit,” said both brothers at the same time.

  The younger one looked to John, then back at Billie. “Either you tell us or we get it out of him.”

  John’s forehead creased with mild surprise, but he didn’t protest the claim. If Billie refused to discuss the matter with her brothers and one of them asked him directly what had happened, he would tell them. He was not bound by whatever code of silence she was apparently operating under. Her family deserved to know—after all, with Andre Sardetsky and his team still out there, there was every possibility they were in danger as well, simply by being related to her.

  Billie growled and shot him another angry look, at which he shrugged and crossed his arms over his chest. Looking back to her brothers she said, “Down in St. Thomas, this Russian gangster whose organization I’ve dealt with before tried—and failed, I might remind you, as is obvious by the fact I’m standing here talking to you—to kill me. They tried to kill Agent Courtney as well, and did in fact kill a friend of mine and a teenage girl.”

  “Jesus Christ, Billie!” hissed the brother whose voice he now recognized as Kevin Ryan’s. “How the hell can you stand there and talk about some thug trying to kill you, about his killing two innocent people, so fucking calmly? Like it’s nothing more than an item to check off your to-do list?”

  “Because I know how to compartmentalize what’s worth worrying about and what isn’t, Kevin, not to mention what’s worth freaking Dad out about and what is not,” she seethed in return.

  Andy and Kevin looked at one another, then back at their sister. “You’re right,” Andy said. “Dad doesn’t need to know. You’ve worried him enough the last year—though perhaps you didn’t notice how much more gray hair he’s got since the last time you saw him.”

  John watched a crestfallen expression pass over her face. Billie looked down at her feet for a moment, before looking back up at her brother with her previous mask of calm back in place. “I noticed,” she said simply. “I don’t need you, or anyone else, to remind me that I made you all worry about me. I’ve got enough to feel guilty about as it is.”