by Dana Mentink
A couple strolled by, the uniformed man’s arm wrapped around the woman’s waist, murmuring something into her ear that made her giggle.
Ethan suddenly pulled her into an embrace that sent her heart racing.
“What are you doing?” she gasped.
His chin grazed her neck. “Preparing to miss you when you deploy,” he said. “We gotta blend. Awesome acting. It’s one of my skills.”
But the kiss he brushed over her neck and temple did not feel like the work of an actor. Oh, stop it, Kendra. He’s pretending, remember that.
Still, the kisses kicked up her pulse and sparked a ridiculous longing that she could be his partner, his confidante, his woman. If things were different...if she was not a dead ringer for his ex, if Andy was not a permanent threat hovering over her, if he was not too soured on marriage...
Head in the game, she reprimanded herself.
Ethan scrutinized the crowd from over her shoulder and she tried to do the same, but his proximity made the task difficult. Finally he let her ease out of his arms and she recovered enough to study someone she’d noticed in passing.
Behind the refreshment table covered by a dark linen tablecloth, a marine tended to the coffeepot. There was nothing outwardly different about him and she wondered why he’d caught her attention.
Kendra listened with half an ear to the talk around her.
...when you come back.
...I’ll miss you so much.
...email every day if you can.
She noticed Bill Madding approach. She tensed as the pilot, who had accosted her outside the gas station believing she was Jillian, looked closely at her, forcing her back a step. “Another impersonation gig? You’re more in demand than Elvis.”
“Keep your voice down,” Ethan snapped.
Madding huffed. “Don’t give me orders.”
Ethan shot him a forced smile. “I’m doing my job. Why don’t you focus on doing yours? Fly your plane, protect your country and stay away from Jillian.”
“The real one?” His eyes darkened. “We’re deploying together. How is my behavior with her any of your business? You’re not back together with her for real.”
“Because I don’t want to see any woman get mixed up with a low-down snake like you.”
Anger flashed over Madding’s face. For a moment, Kendra thought he was going to let loose with a punch, but instead he scowled and walked away.
She blew out a breath. “I wonder what Jillian ever saw in him.”
“All ego and limited charm, which doesn’t speak well to her tastes.” He sighed. “Of course, she chose me, too, so...”
Kendra’s attention again drifted to the marine fiddling with the coffeepot. He had dark blond hair, a small mouth and his lips were thinned in concentration, but there was something about him... His posture, the way he looked out of the corner of his eye every so often, the sheen of perspiration on his brow. “Ethan?”
“Yeah?”
She saw the guy reflected in the silver surface of the coffee machine, a dark shadow followed by a glint of metal, as he pulled a weapon from under his shirt. “Gun,” she shouted, going for her own.
The man at the coffeepot turned and aimed his weapon at her, center mass. It was as if time stood still and at long last she was face-to-face with Boyd Sullivan. Both Ethan and Titus charged at the same moment, leaping between Kendra and Sullivan. The roar of a shot cut across her senses as Sullivan fired. Ethan jerked back a step.
Sullivan overturned the coffee cart, sending a river of hot liquid and mugs crashing to the ground. Soldiers scrambled after Sullivan, civilians pushed children behind them and ran for the safety of buildings. Someone near her shouted into a radio.
Sullivan raced around the end of the last military van. She bolted after him, catching up as he edged around the van. Bringing her gun up, she turned the corner of the vehicle and plunged in, finding herself looking down the barrel of his gun.
“Drop your weapon, Sullivan,” she said.
“I was just about to say the same thing.”
Kendra noted a shadow creeping over the hood of the van. A marine, gun drawn, was inching closer.
“It’s over,” she said. “You won’t get out of here alive.”
“You’d be surprised what I can do,” he said. As he fingered the trigger, she braced herself and aimed for his heart, just as the marine edged closer. Sullivan caught the movement, fired one shot at the marine and a second at her. Both shots missed. She wheeled back behind the van. Risking a quick look, she bent down and saw the marine searching under the vans, a furious look on his face and her heart sank when he did not find his quarry. They’d lost him. Again.
She got to her feet.
And suddenly, there Sullivan was, across the quad. He aimed a mocking salute at her.
She did not have a clear shot and he knew it. “There,” Kendra shouted, alerting the marine and his cohorts.
Sullivan’s smile was tight and filled with hate as he disappeared into the darkness, the marines shouting orders hot on his trail.
His smugness baffled her. He could not possibly escape this time, not from a Marine Corps base. Then her brain processed the shot, Ethan’s reaction as Sullivan’s bullet caught him. No. It can’t be...
Fear pumping her legs, she ran.
Ethan was already getting to his feet, blood darkening the shoulder of his fatigues where the bullet had grazed his bicep. Titus stayed close by, whining, but this time he let Kendra in.
“Are you...?”
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “Just a nick. I told you Sullivan couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn.”
She was crushed by both relief and frustration. “I almost had him, but he got away again.”
“Marines will get him.” Ethan grimaced as he grabbed Titus’s lead. “I’ll help. Titus can track him.”
She stilled him with a hand on his arm. “No, you’re going to see the doctor.”
“But I’m—”
“Not going to argue, just like the time you plopped me on the stretcher and wouldn’t listen to a single world I said.”
“That was different.”
“Why? And if you say ‘because you’re a girl’ you’ll get a sock in the jaw, bullet wound or no.”
He was spared from answering when two Marine medics hustled over to assist. They gave Titus a wary look.
“Sorry, guys,” Ethan said. “If you want me, you get him, too.”
Grumbling, they checked Ethan’s vitals, applied a bandage and loaded him into a vehicle with Titus in the back. Another vehicle pulled up and the driver motioned for Kendra. Before she left him, Ethan handed her his pack and phone. “Can you hold on to these for me? Don’t wanna bleed on them.” He quirked an eyebrow at her. “It’s okay. We messed up Sullivan’s plans. He didn’t hurt you. He might even give up, since Jillian...I mean, since you’re going away for seven months.”
She took comfort in that. At least for now, Jillian Masters was safe. But she’d never be completely in the clear until Sullivan was captured. It still felt as though she’d failed. All she could do was hope and pray that the marines would track him down and make sure Ethan would get proper medical treatment in spite of his stubbornness.
After a quick drive, she sat as patiently as she could at the base hospital waiting room, checking in with Officer Carpenter by phone. “Do you have anything further on the two bodies in the woods?”
“I told you I’d let you know when we had more info. You can’t rush our coroner, and believe me, I’ve tried,” Carpenter said.
She was going to press harder when she felt Ethan’s phone vibrate in her pocket. She fished it out in time to see the message appear on the screen.
G.I. Joe. I’m driving to your girl’s house. Tell her to come out or I’m coming in to get her. No cops, or things will get bloody.
Adrenaline exploded in her veins. Andy was waiting, laying a trap for Ethan in order to get to her. She’d had her showdown with Sullivan.
Now it was time for another, and this one was personal.
* * *
Ethan endured the wound cleaning and the obligatory patient care instructions. He stopped listening to the doctor when Hector Sanchez pushed into the room.
“Give us a minute, Doc?” Hector said.
“You can have all the minutes you want,” the doctor said. “He’s free to go.”
When they were alone, Hector sat heavily in a vinyl-covered chair.
Ethan’s heart sank. “You didn’t get him.”
“No, we didn’t.”
Ethan slammed a palm on the exam table. “How is that possible? How could Sullivan get away from your security guys on a fenced Marine Corps base?”
Hector huffed. “We think he may have climbed underneath a fuel truck leaving through the gate.”
“And your people didn’t check?”
“They did, but they must have missed him.”
“Titus wouldn’t have.”
Hector exhaled and glared right back at Ethan. “Yeah? Well, we didn’t have Titus on duty, now did we, hotshot? And you didn’t fill me in on the ‘let’s trap Sullivan’ plan so I was going in blind, wasn’t I? You tied my hands and I don’t appreciate it.”
Ethan ground his teeth together. It wasn’t the time for blame. They hadn’t done any better at Canyon. “Right. Sorry.”
Hector sighed. “We found his stolen Marine uniform a mile away from the base. He’s not getting back onto Baylor that way.”
“My guess is he’s not planning on returning at all since as far as he knows his target is going overseas for seven months.”
“You sure about that?”
“Let’s call it a hunch,” Ethan said. “Sullivan has plenty of other targets on his list and he’s not a particularly patient man. He can’t afford to be with the US Marines and Air Force hunting him. If he wants to get his kills in, he knows he’s gonna have to make his moves elsewhere.”
Hector let that sink in, and Ethan could almost see the wheels turning.
“What is it you want to ask, Hector?”
“Jillian Masters, or the girl whose impersonating her.”
He sat up straighter. “What about her?”
“If she’s supposed to be pretending to deploy with her squadron, why did my guys tell me that she checked out the front gate?”
He froze. “When?”
“’Bout fifteen minutes ago.”
He reached for his phone, groaning when he remembered. Kendra had it, and for some reason, she’d made the insane decision to leave base without him.
He could think of only one reason she might have done that. One very deadly reason.
TWENTY-TWO
Kendra thanked the driver for giving her a ride when he dropped her at the curb a block from her house. She stood in the shadows of some dripping oak trees. Andy’s text to Ethan was a trap, of course, one she could not let Ethan walk into. And he would, willingly, delivering himself to Andy to save her. He would believe he could win, but no one won against Andy Bleakman. Until now.
There was no option but for her to face Andy before Ethan did. If it was not now, it would be another day, another place, but it would come, their showdown. She would do her best to win, to end it, finally, but at least she would know that Ethan had not been devoured by Andy’s voracious need for revenge. Hopefully the whole nightmare would be over and done with before Ethan was discharged from the clinic.
Her throat was dry, her hands ice-cold as she observed the house. A strange car was parked in Jillian’s driveway. Another one Andy had stolen, probably. She took a picture and texted it to Carpenter, whom she had already called. He would be arriving in ten minutes, no lights, no sirens. Her job would be to draw Andy out and he would be arrested. Clean and neat. But nothing with Andy was ever clean, nor neat.
She’d taken a moment before she left Baylor to change into jeans, a T-shirt and a windbreaker, taking the 9mm Beretta from Jillian’s survival vest and stowing it in a holster she’d strapped on her ankle, one round chambered, safety off. She’d rather have had her Glock strapped to her side, but he would detect that in a moment. The Beretta would do and she prayed she wouldn’t have to use it.
A cold drizzle fell steadily, dampening her hair. Just over the top of the fence she saw the light shining in Ethan’s unit behind the house. Andy knew Ethan would not deliver Kendra. He intended to get Ethan and Titus out of the picture first. What surprise had he prepared in the mother-in-law unit? The house? Was he right now crouching behind a curtain with a gun in hand?
She remembered the sound of the wasps swarming over her, the pain of their stingers plunging into her skin, the whir of bullets whistling over her head and the crash of her car hitting a tree. And her headlong hurtle into the icy waters of the river.
Andy’s text replayed in her mind. You’re dead.
Fear suddenly turned to anger that such a man could have power over her life and Ethan’s. Yes, she’d made mistakes, craved love too much, trusted blindly and stupidly, but God had saved her from her grievous errors. He’d forgiven her, allowed her to move on, to experience what a decent man was like. More than decent.
Her heart beat the truth with every pulse. She loved Ethan. He’d become the light in her darkness, the God-loving, joke-cracking embodiment of what a man, a real man, a partner, should be like. But he was not open for a relationship, not now, and not with her. As much as it hurt, she knew it was reality. Shoving the pain down, she wiped rain and tears from her face and straightened. If all she could do was ensure Ethan’s safety by handling things with Andy, so be it. It would be her gift to him and to herself.
There was no movement from the house, nor the mother-in-law unit. She checked her watch. Another five minutes max until Carpenter arrived.
Baby, she thought suddenly, her stomach clenching into a fist. If Andy had gotten into the main house, what would he do to Baby? She thought of the time long ago when he’d tried to kill the cat, the fury in his eyes, the desire to maim, to inflict maximum pain. Panic nearly forced her feet into motion.
Calm down, she ordered herself. Baby was an expert at hiding and she didn’t like Andy one bit. The first sign of him and she’d have scooted to the nearest hidey-hole. It’s fine. Baby is okay and you’re not going to do something dumb like go in there without backup.
A car approached and she tensed, ready to take cover. Mindy Zeppler rolled down her window. “Jillian? What in the world are you doing standing there in the rain? I almost didn’t see you.”
“I, uh, I just needed some air.”
“I heard in town this morning that you were deploying, but you didn’t say anything about it to me.” There was a flash of hurt in her eyes, betrayal.
“I’m going to catch a ride to Fort Levine later, but yes, I’m deploying.” And there’d be no need to continue to impersonate Jillian Masters, no need to stay in this part of Texas. No reason to be around Ethan. She swallowed. “It came up suddenly. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
Mindy shrugged. “That’s the military for you. My ex deploys today, too, but he never minded the short notice. Billy was always chomping at the bit to leave home.”
How sad. Kendra felt in that moment that if God blessed her with a spouse, a home, she’d never, ever want to leave it.
“But aren’t you sad to be leaving your hubby?” Mindy asked her. “What about the wedding?”
Kendra forced a smile. “We’ll have that beach wedding when I get back.”
“Ethan’s a good man to wait for you.”
“Yes, he is,” she said.
“Do you need a ride somewhere? You’re getting soaked.”
“No.” Kendra felt desperate to get M
indy safely away before the cops arrived and the situation went critical. “No, I’m just going to, um, drive to the corner store and buy more cat food. I’ll see you later.”
Before Mindy could question her, Kendra jogged across the street to her car and slid into the driver’s seat. She watched with a sigh of relief as Mindy drove by with a bemused smile and a wave.
The woman thought she was crazy, but at least she would be safely inside before anything happened. Kendra checked her watch again. It was time. Where were the cops?
An arm wrapped around her throat from the back seat.
“I figured you might get in sooner or later. Patience is a virtue, isn’t it, Kendra?” Andy said into her ear.
* * *
Ethan borrowed a phone and slammed the SUV into gear. Titus braced himself in the back. They flew off the base and along the road toward Jillian’s house. His nerves screamed with tension, louder than they had in a combat zone. On the fourth ring Carpenter finally answered his phone.
“I’m en route there right now,” he said when Ethan told him to meet at Jillian’s house. “Just pulling up on the street.”
“It’s a trap,” Ethan practically shouted. “Andy figured I’d show up and he’d take me and Titus out first. He’s in position already, I know it.”
“Not my first rodeo, kid,” Carpenter growled. “Let us handle securing the scene. You stand down, do you hear me?”
“Yes, sir,” Ethan said, ending the connection with a stab of his finger. But hearing and listening were two different things, as Kendra said. He practically throttled the steering wheel, picturing her taking off without him to handle Andy, the psycho. What was she thinking?
But he knew. She’d told him.
I made the mess. I have to clean it up.
Her determination alternately awakened his admiration and his flat-out exasperation. She was actually planning to face down Andy Bleakman alone in order to keep him out of the picture. It was ludicrous. He careened down the highway and the thought floored him. He’d never been with a woman who put his needs ahead of hers. It was stunning, breathtaking and utterly infuriating. He pressed the accelerator harder and nearly missed the turn to her street, pulling up a block away behind Carpenter’s car. Fear knotted his stomach when he noticed that Kendra’s car was missing. The MP in him imagined the scenario. Kendra had surprised Andy. He’d rendered her unconscious, or worse, and taken her car to escape. Or he’d forced her into the vehicle and taken her somewhere.