by Dee Davis
“Wait here,” he said, signaling Tyler to stay put. “Keep me covered, and if I get into trouble, take her out.”
Tyler nodded, gun already in hand.
Without giving himself time for further thought, Nash leaped across the gap, landing silently on the cement walkway, staying out of view behind the overgrowth of rhododendrons.
Annie had shifted again, moving closer to him. He could see the outline of her face under the cap, her profile as familiar to him as his own. She was still feigning stretching, her attention locked on the building across from her.
Thanks to the incline and a bend in the walkway, his approach would be almost invisible. Sucking in a breath, he drew his gun and moved forward, closing the distance between them. Annie’s attention was still on Dominico’s apartment, and as the man appeared in the window, she shifted, straightening her arm as she lined up the shot, but Nash was faster, leveling his gun at the back of her head.
“Give it up, Annie,” he said, his voice cracking on her name. “Please. Don’t make me shoot you.”
CHAPTER 5
Give us some time alone,” Nash said, his jaw tightening with the request.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” the blonde asked, her green eyes speculative as she looked from Annie to Nash.
“Tyler, just do it.” There was a note of command in Nash’s voice that Annie remembered well.
“Fine.” Tyler shrugged. “I need to call Avery, anyway. I’ll do it from the parlor.” She walked toward the door, stopping first to lay a hand on Nash’s shoulder, the gesture comforting and intimate.
Annie fought against a rush of emotion, forcing herself to focus. Nash was nothing to her anymore. An obstacle to finding Adam. The thought of her baby out there somewhere with God knew who was beyond frightening. She clenched her teeth, trying to maintain control. There had to be a way out. She just needed to find it.
She had no idea where exactly they were. Lower Manhattan somewhere. A brownstone from the looks of it. Probably a safe house of some kind. From here, they’d no doubt take her to a secured facility. Somewhere where she’d have little chance of escaping. Which meant that she had to capitalize on the moment. Find a way out now before reinforcements arrived.
Rivon had been clear. No outside help.
She wasn’t carrying the phone, and she’d been careful to cover her tracks. So there was a chance that they didn’t know about her capture, but that didn’t rule out the possibility of being followed. And if Rivon knew—then Adam could already be dead.
Her heart pounded in her chest, tears welling, and she struggled to calm herself. There was nothing to be gained by letting her fear take control. She’d been in worse situations and managed to escape. She could do this.
Releasing a long breath, she turned to face Nash. “So where are we?” she asked, her frown more of a prop than anything else. A mask to hide her tumultuous feelings. The longer she was here, the more risk to Adam. She had to find a way out.
“A safe house,” Nash said, his tone curt, his attention on a sheaf of papers in his hand. He’d hardly made eye contact since he’d trapped her on the bridge, leaving most of the physical contact to the blonde. Which was just as well. She wasn’t sure she could handle him touching her. Not after all this time.
“And the blonde?” she asked, playing for time as she tried to case the room. “Is she your partner?”
“Tyler’s part of A-Tac. Expert in munitions,” Nash said, his dark eyes giving away nothing. “And she’s a friend.”
“I see.” She nodded, her gaze darting around the room, looking for some means of escape. “And this Avery?”
“He’s my boss. Heads up the team. He’ll be escorting you to Langley. Along with Tom Walker.”
“Tom?” she frowned, fighting off another rush of memory. Tom had been her friend once. An ally when her life had turned to shit. He’d helped her escape. Helped her go underground. He was the only one who had known the whole truth. But he’d moved on to bigger and brighter things, cutting her off in the process. Just like everyone in her life—he’d walked away.
But now apparently he was back, and more of a threat than she wanted to acknowledge.
“He’s Homeland Security,” she said, scrambling to figure Tom’s angle in all of this. Tom always had an angle. “Some big muckety-muck, right?”
“Nice to know you keep up.”
“I don’t. Not really.” She shook her head. “But it was headline news. Kind of hard to miss. So if this is a CIA matter, why Homeland Security?”
“Treason tends to bring out the big guns, Annie. Homeland Security has priority. But since you were ex-CIA,” he said, emphasis on ex, “we drew the short straw when it came to running you to ground.”
“But you and Tom…” she trailed off, knowing there really weren’t words.
“Had the dubious honor of knowing you,” he finished for her, the words not meant as a compliment. “That’s why we were called in.”
“I see.”
Silence stretched between them, a ticking clock on the mantel sounding abnormally loud. She tried to focus on the room. Find access for escape. But concentration seemed out of the question. Maybe she’d been away from the game too long. Or maybe it was her proximity to Nash. Either way she was having difficulty staying on task.
Adam, her mind whispered. Nothing matters but Adam.
She nodded, pushing away everything else. Nothing was more important than her son. It was as simple as that. Once they’d transferred her to Langley, she’d be out of the game for good. Of no use to Adam. And even if she told them the truth, it wouldn’t change the fact that she’d been caught gunning for Dominico. Tom was a stickler for the rules, and Nash’s boss was an unknown quantity. They’d ship her off to Washington. And once Rivon figured it out—she struggled to breathe as the image of her son filled her brain. He was so little.
She had to find a way out.
“So,” she said, pushing to her feet, testing her boundaries, “until this Avery arrives, I’m a prisoner here?”
After arriving at the brownstone, they’d made no further effort to restrain her. Nash had said it was a safe house. Which meant one of two things. Either an off-the-books place out of sight of prying eyes. Or a stronghold meant to keep people out—or in. She was betting on the latter. But at least from what she could see, it felt more like the former. A safe place agents could go to recuperate. Find center again.
There had been a place in Vienna. An escape she and Nash had used…
But those days were gone.
“I’m not giving you a chance to get out of here, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he said.
“But I’m free to stretch my legs?”
He watched as she moved toward the window but made no effort to stop her. The street below looked like any other Manhattan street. Garbage bags littering the sidewalk, spindly trees stretching upward trying to find their way out of the grime-laden air. Just for a moment she closed her eyes, thinking of home—of Colorado.
But Dominico wasn’t in Creede. And neither was Adam.
She turned to face Nash, leaning back against the sill, feeling surreptitiously with her fingers to see if the window could be opened.
“It’s no use,” he said, circling closer. “The windows all have motion sensors.”
“Nobody in. Nobody out.” She moved away from the window, accepting the futility of trying to use it as a mode of escape. But that didn’t mean she’d given up. Not by a long shot.
“You know the drill.” He shrugged, then lifted his eyes, his gaze colliding with hers, his anger an almost tangible thing. “What the hell were you doing out there, Annie?”
Electricity arced between them as their eyes dueled. Once upon a time, she’d believed she’d known this man better than she’d known herself, but that was ancient history. The truth was she didn’t know him at all. Which meant she couldn’t afford to drop her guard. It would be too easy to fall into old patterns. To trust a man that s
he knew damn well couldn’t be trusted, at least not when it came to the things that really mattered. She pulled in a cleansing breath, steeling herself. “I was doing what I had to do.”
“Killing the ambassador.” His tone was dismissive, his disdain apparent.
“Sometimes we have to choose the lesser of two evils.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s all I’ve got.” She shrugged, her repertoire seemingly reduced to the simplest of gestures.
“Well, you’re going to have to do better than that,” he said, exasperation coloring his tone. “If not with me then with Avery and Tom.”
“I’ve got nothing to say to any of you.”
“It’s not like you can make it go away, Annie. You had your sights on Dominico. I saw you. And even if I were inclined to look the other way, Tyler saw it, too. As well as four different security cameras.”
“I haven’t denied anything,” she said, searching the room for other ways out. The door wasn’t locked, but Nash’s partner was out there. Given the right circumstances, Annie might be able to take the woman, but first she’d have to make it past Nash. Not impossible odds, but she’d need to find the right moment. Preferably before reinforcements arrived. She blew out a breath and forced herself to focus on what Nash was saying.
“You’re in a hell of a lot of trouble, Annie. There’s no getting around it. And the only thing you can do to help yourself is to tell us what you know. Help us catch the bastards behind this.”
And kill her son in the process.
She shook her head, sequestering her emotions. “How do you know I wasn’t working on my own?”
“Because we know you met with Emanuel Rivon several days ago,” Nash said, his eyes narrowing. “And that he’s been meeting with known associates of Ashad.”
“You’ve certainly done your homework,” she said, stalling while she tried to gauge the distance between the window and the door.
“Maybe you’ve forgotten,” he said, moving closer, his eyes narrowed, “but I’m really good at what I do.”
“How could I possibly have forgotten?” The tension in the room ratcheted up another level. “You put your job before everything else.”
“At least I know how to follow through on what I start.”
They were standing inches apart, their anger tying them together in a way their love affair clearly never had. And in that moment, Annie knew this was her best chance. Probably her only one. Without giving herself the time to analyze further, she clasped her hands and swung upward, her fists connecting with Nash’s chin. He staggered backward as she followed through with a knee to the groin, his gasp of pain indicating she’d hit target.
Taking advantage of his momentary disorientation, she sprinted for the door, wrenching it open and stepping onto the brownstone’s landing. Stairs extended in both directions, but Tyler’s voice carrying from below meant that “up” was the better option. Praying that there’d be some kind of access to the roof, she headed for the third floor.
Below her, his anger erupting in expletives, Nash burst through the door and started after her. With only seconds separating them, she increased her pace, her attention focused on the landing above her.
Then, without warning, the stairs curved abruptly and in her haste, she stumbled, grabbing for the railing. Her last-minute handhold kept her from falling, but the mistake cost her valuable time. Nash quickly closed the distance between them, his fingers tightening on her wrist as he yanked her to a stop.
Reacting on instinct, she whipped around, shoving hard against his chest, then wrenched away, fleeing up the remaining steps, fighting against the urge to turn and make sure that he was okay.
Whatever he might have once been to her, he was her enemy now. A major obstacle to freeing Adam.
She hit the top of the staircase and moved quickly onto the landing, searching for some way to exit. There were rooms opening off to her right and left, but there was no time to explore. She might have slowed Nash, but she certainly hadn’t stopped him. Fighting against panic, she searched the hallway, relieved when she spotted a ladder and the outline of a trap door at the far end.
Sprinting now, she raced forward, praying that the ladder led to the roof and not the brownstone’s attic or some forgotten crawl space, but knowing that either way, she had to make it work. Taking the rungs two at a time, she reached the top just as she heard Nash hit the landing.
“Annie,” he called, his tone deceptively calm. “You’re wasting your time. There’s no way out.”
“There’s always a way out,” she called back as she pushed the trap door wide. “You taught me that.” In seconds, she was up and through the opening.
But instead of blue sky, she was greeted with dusty gray walls. Which meant she was still trapped.
Damn it all to hell.
With a sigh of frustration, she slammed the trap door back into place, shoving a rotting old crate over it in an effort to keep Nash out. It wouldn’t hold for long, but it might buy her enough time to figure a way out.
The room was small, the walls lined with insulation. A small window at the far end was the only source of light. She searched the ceiling for signs of another opening out onto the roof, but there was nothing visible. Cursing her luck, she ran for the window as Nash slammed into the trap door from below, the crate listing drunkenly in response.
It wouldn’t be long before he managed to break through her makeshift barrier.
The window was cracked and grimy. A quick search of the sash and sill yielded no sign of security. She tried to yank it open, but age and weather had lodged it firmly into place. Behind her the crate slid forward as the wood and metal trap door slammed into the floor.
Wrapping the bottom of her T-shirt around her hand, Annie punched out the glass, relieved to see a rickety ladder extending upward from a grated metal walkway just outside the window. Slipping through the opening, she pulled herself out onto the ledge, heart pounding as she listened for the sound of Nash’s footsteps as he crossed the floor of the attic.
Instead silence reigned. It could be a trick, but she wasn’t about to wait to find out. Better to keep moving. Without bothering to test stability, she scrambled up the ladder, relieved when it held her weight.
At the top, two curved iron railings provided final access over the wall that bordered the roof. Grasping each side, she pulled herself up and over the ledge, landing in a crouch.
“What took you so long?” Nash asked, his smile cold as she pushed upright, already moving in retreat. Behind him, an open doorway signaled a second entrance to the rooftop. She must have missed it in her cursory examination of the hallway and attic. “I told you it was pointless to try to run.”
“You always did underestimate me,” she snapped as she reached behind her for the railing. Pushing off with her feet, she flipped backward, her intent to regain the ladder she’d just left. But Nash was faster, grabbing her by the waist and pulling her back onto the roof, the effort sending them both sprawling.
Gravel dug into her back, and she swore as she tried to push her way free. “Let go of me.”
“Not on your life,” he whispered, his grip tightening. “This isn’t a game, Annie. And even if it were, you’ll remember I’m not big on losing.”
“I remember a lot of things,” she said, twisting left, slamming her knee up into his gut. He grunted in pain, and she pulled herself free, scrambling to her knees, only to have him tackle her again.
They rolled across the rooftop, each trying to gain the upper hand. They’d sparred like this hundreds of times over the years. Each with their share of wins. But this time the stakes were much higher. This time her son’s life was at risk.
She pushed off, trying for leverage, but only managed to lose her grip, Nash flipping them so that he straddled her. His face was flushed, his breathing coming in gasps. “When did I become the enemy, Annie?”
“When you let me go,” she whispered, the words coming of their own acc
ord.
He frowned, the pain in his eyes a reflection of the ache in her heart. With gentle fingers he pushed the hair from her face, and she turned away, not willing to explore the emotions coursing through her. There was too much time between them. Too much hurt.
“You all right?” Tyler asked, appearing in the rooftop doorway, her gun serving only to increase the tension between them.
“I’m fine. Everything’s under control,” Nash said, his grip tightening.
Tyler surveyed the situation and nodded. “Avery’s downstairs. With Walker. I figured you’d just as soon him not find you up here—like this.”
“You figured right.” Nash pushed to his feet, then reached down to pull Annie up. “We’re coming,” he said, his fingers locking around her arm.
Tyler nodded, moving back to give them access to the stairwell, her gun still trained on Annie. Nash held his ground, his dark gaze giving away nothing. Annie shivered, but refused to look away. “What the hell happened to you?” he asked, a tiny muscle in his jaw the only sign of emotion. “We used to be on the same side.”
“Yeah, well, things change,” she said, unable to keep the sarcasm from her voice.
“I don’t buy it. There’s something else going on. I can see it in your eyes. Come on, Annie, you used to tell me everything.”
“That was a hell of a long time ago,” she whispered, her thoughts tumbling over each other. After all these years, he was here. With her. And in so many ways, it felt the same. And yet it couldn’t be. If for no other reason than the lies that lay between them.
Hers.
His.
They were unavoidable. And she’d be a fool to believe him now.
“Annie, whatever it is—you can tell me.” His eyebrow raised in question, the gesture so familiar she wanted to cry.
She swallowed, her heart pounding so loud that she was certain he could hear it. Maybe she was a fool. Or maybe she was just desperate. Either way she was certain there would be a price to pay. But beggars couldn’t be choosers. She’d blown her chance at escape. Which meant that Adam’s only chance now was for her to come clean.