by Cynthia Eden
Carefully, she slipped from beneath him. Celia lowered his head to the floor.
She’d thought she knew him. She’d thought wrong.
Celia wiped her bloody hands on her jeans, then picked up her weapon again. She went after Sullivan.
* * *
HE HEARD THE roar of a motorcycle. The distinct sound of the engine couldn’t be mistaken, and Sullivan bounded around the corner of the warehouse. A good fifty feet away, he saw the man on the motorcycle—a guy wearing a heavy black leather coat and a dark helmet. There appeared to be a heavy gear bag of sorts strapped to his back.
Not a gear bag. A weapon bag. Sullivan would bet the guy’s sniper rifle was in that bag.
“Stop!” Sullivan yelled.
The guy didn’t stop. He shot forward on the motorcycle.
Mac leaped from the shadows, his gun up, and fired at the guy on that motorcycle.
The bullets slammed into the bike’s body and the rider nearly lost control. But then he revved the engine once more and took off, even as Mac kept firing at him. The guy crouched low on the bike and was vanishing as Mac and Sullivan raced after him.
Hell, no, we won’t catch him on foot.
Sullivan spun around. “Go stay with Celia!” he called to Mac. “I’m going after that jerk.” Because if that guy got away, they’d be back to square one. No way. No damn way could that happen. He ran back to his car, jumped inside and twisted the key.
The engine sputtered, not starting instantly.
He stiffened.
The car was just tuned up last week. It should have started right away.
His head whipped up. Through the glass of his window, he saw Celia run out of the warehouse. He threw open the door and lunged out of the car. “Back, Celia!” he bellowed at her. “Get back—”
There wasn’t enough time for him to get to her. The car exploded behind him, sending a blast of fire rushing right at him. He saw the terror on Celia’s face—that one instant seemed to be frozen in time. Her mouth was open, as if she was screaming.
Was she calling his name? He couldn’t tell for sure. He couldn’t hear her. The blast was too loud, deafening.
But Sullivan could see the terror in her eyes. Her gaze had gone wide, her blue eyes never bigger than they were in that desperate moment.
He’d told her to get back.
She was still rushing forward.
And the fire seemed to surround them both.
* * *
HE BRAKED THE motorcycle when he heard the explosion. Through the visor of his helmet, he glanced back and saw the dark cloud of smoke rising into the air.
It had been pathetically easy to predict the moves of the McGuires. Of course they would give chase. Of course they’d think they were the unstoppable force who could follow him and save the day.
Like father...like sons.
So while Sullivan had been kept distracted by Ronald, he’d put his little surprise in place. Then he’d waited, giving Sullivan and his brother—because, sure, he’d known Sullivan would have a tagalong with him—a chance to spot him. After all, they couldn’t give chase unless they’d actually seen him.
Now the chase was over. For the McGuires, at least.
The smoke kept drifting in the air. In the distance, he heard the wail of sirens. The local authorities, finally coming to the rescue. Only who was left to rescue?
He turned back around. He’d have to go off-road to avoid the cop cars. Easy enough to do. He’d lie low for a bit. Maybe even take refuge at an old cabin he’d enjoyed once before.
And when it was clear, he’d just slip right out of town and get back to the life that waited for him.
But before he left, he’d make sure that the McGuire ranch burned to the ground...a final end to that dark chapter of his life.
No more mistakes.
His fingers curled around the handlebars and he drove away.
* * *
“SULLIVAN!”
She heard the cry distantly, a muted call.
“Celia!”
Her eyes opened. She sucked in a deep breath and nearly choked on the smoke. Her breath came out in a coughing spree as Celia realized where she was.
Not on the ground. She’d reached Sullivan. Their bodies were tangled together, as if they’d been tossed by the explosion. They’d landed together, but he was beneath her, and he wasn’t moving.
Just as Ronald hadn’t moved.
“No.” Her voice was so weak. “Sully?”
“Celia! Sullivan!” That cry wasn’t so muted now. It was Mac’s desperate bellow. He was racing toward them.
Sullivan’s face was cut. Dark ash and dirt covered his features. Her hands flew over him, frantic, as she searched for wounds. “Sully, please, talk to me.”
Her fingers pressed to his throat. When she felt his pulse, her whole body shuddered. He was alive. “He’s okay!” Her voice was too weak to carry over to Mac, so she tried again. “Sully is breathing! His pulse is strong.” She cleared her throat, pushing back the lump that had risen there as she managed to shout, “He’s alive!”
Sullivan’s eyes opened. Bleary, but aware.
His car kept burning, sending that smoke billowing up into the air. He’d escaped, just in time. They both had.
“Celia?”
She threw her arms around him and held on as tightly as she could. “You’re alive,” she said, her voice catching.
His arms rose and locked around her. He held her in a strong grip. Strong, unbreakable Sullivan. Just what would she have done if he’d burned in that car?
The air was heavy with the scent of the blaze. She could hear the crackle of the flames. She knew the shooter had set that bomb. Ronald wouldn’t have had the time to do it.
And Ronald didn’t tell me about it. Even as she’d been trying to comfort him in his last moments, he hadn’t tried to warn her that death was waiting. Had he known? Had he just not cared?
“You weren’t supposed to leave this meeting alive,” she whispered. She held him even tighter. “You’re a target, Sullivan. Someone is gunning for you.” Someone with powerful connections.
Footsteps pounded toward them. “That was too damn close,” Mac said, his breath huffing out. “When I heard the explosion, hell, Sully, I thought you were still in the car!”
Sullivan pulled back from Celia, but he didn’t let her go. “The ignition sputtered.” A muscle flexed in his jaw. “I’ve heard that same sound before, in the Middle East. The engine sputtered when I was on a mission there...” He coughed, and then rasped, “Back then, I had about five seconds to get the hell out of my jeep before it exploded.”
Five seconds.
Five seconds to live.
Five seconds to die.
She shuddered against him and finally, finally heard the sound of sirens.
* * *
CELIA DIDN’T NORMALLY spend a whole lot of time in police stations. When she was with the agency, she’d worked her own brand of law enforcement, and it hadn’t entailed sitting in a police interrogation room while she was the one being grilled.
But when the cops had rushed to the warehouse and discovered both a burning car and a dead body...she knew that she wouldn’t be going anyplace soon. Sure, Sullivan and Mac might have a relationship with the local cops, but she was an unknown.
A potentially deadly threat.
Celia stared at her reflection in the one-way mirror. Her hand lifted as she brushed back her hair. She didn’t look completely like hell. Maybe forty percent? Thirty percent like hell? Her fingers rubbed at the soot on her cheek. Her nose scrunched up as she realized she still smelled like fire.
And she still had blood on her jeans.
The door opened and a tall, broad-shouldered African-American man entered the room. He was dressed casually, with a badge clipped to his waist.
“Ms. James...” He pulled out the chair across from her and sat down. He sighed, looked absolutely less than thrilled as he stared at her, then drummed his fingers o
n the tabletop. “We have a problem.”
She had a lot of problems right now, so the guy needed to narrow things down a bit.
“I’m Police Captain Ben Howard,” he said, his voice not friendly and not threatening. Just flat. “And I have some questions for you.” After that announcement, he just waited.
So she asked, “Um, what are those questions?”
His dark eyes scanned her face. “This is the part where you’re supposed to ask for a lawyer.”
“I don’t want a lawyer.” She didn’t want to draw anyone else into this mess. “I haven’t committed any crimes, so I don’t need one.”
“You were found at the scene of—hell, I don’t even know what,” Ben muttered. “An unidentified male was shot, a bomb was placed in Sullivan McGuire’s vehicle and—”
“The dead man isn’t unidentified. I knew him quite well.” That news probably wasn’t going to help her in the suspicion department. “But he was CIA, and if I start talking about him, the talk won’t get very far.”
He stared back at her. “CIA.” Then she was pretty sure he swore under his breath and she caught the mutter of, “Things can never be easy with the McGuires...”
She considered the matter again—as she’d been doing the whole time she was waiting in the interrogation room. “I don’t think he was acting under government orders. In fact, I think he was tied to the deaths of Sullivan’s parents years ago.” Though there was no thinking about it. Ronald had confessed. She knew of his involvement with one hundred percent certainty.
Years ago, two men had slipped onto the McGuire ranch and committed those murders. Ronald Worth had been one of those men. And the mysterious shooter? She thought he had been the second man.
The captain stared back at her. “Just how do you fit into this mess?”
“I was CIA, too,” she said.
He closed his eyes.
She waited. He didn’t open them again.
Her gaze slid to that one-way mirror. Just who was in there, watching them?
“How long will it be,” Ben asked, still with his eyes closed, “before federal agents swarm in here and tell me they’re taking over my case?”
“I don’t think the CIA is aware of what’s been happening down here. The victim you found, he was acting outside his parameters with the agency.”
Ben’s eyes snapped open. “A rogue agent?”
She swallowed. “So it would seem.” Only he hadn’t been acting alone. They had to find the shooter.
Before he went after the McGuires.
Her shoulders straightened as she focused on Ben. “You’ve been talking with Sullivan.” She had no doubt about that. “I’m sure he told you what happened.” As much as Sullivan could tell him. “I don’t see what other information I could provide—” She broke off and folded her hands on the table. “Most of my past is classified.”
“Then give me the name of someone at the CIA who can verify what you’ve told me.”
She nodded and rattled off a phone number for him. He wrote it down on a pad beside him. She waited a beat, then said, “Ask for Alexandra Sanchez.” Because Agent Sanchez had been a fixture at the agency for as long as Celia could remember. She’d been the supervisor of the Special Activities Division before being promoted up the chain of command. Sanchez would have to be informed of Ronald’s death...and his betrayals.
There’s going to be a housecleaning at the agency.
“Agent Sanchez can verify my identity for you,” Celia said. “But when you call her—”
“Her group is going to swarm and whisk you away, right?”
They’d try.
He rose but didn’t leave the little room. Instead, Ben put his hands on the table and leaned toward her. “Are the McGuires in danger?”
She held his gaze. “I believe that they are.” Until that shooter was caught, none of the McGuires should sleep too deeply. “A hunter is out there. He’s trying to tie up loose ends.”
Like Sullivan.
Like me.
“You don’t have a name for me? Not a face?”
She shook her head. “I never saw the shooter.”
“But you were with the victim when he died, right? Did he have any famous last words?”
She didn’t look away from his stare. “Nothing that can help you.”
He snatched up the notebook. “I’m going to make that call.”
She nodded. When the door shut behind him, she didn’t move from that uncomfortable chair. But she did remember...
Only doing my...job. Ronald’s last words were replaying through her mind. We didn’t...didn’t kill the woman. Let her go... She should never...never have been...there... She...recognized him...knew killer... F-family...
In the end, it kept coming back to that. Family. Just who had made the McGuire family into a target?
* * *
“THEY’RE NOT LETTING Celia go,” Mac said as he marched out of the police station.
The sun was setting in the city, a red glow that spread across the sky. That glow looked far too much like blood for Sullivan’s taste.
“What in the hell do you mean,” Sullivan demanded, “they aren’t letting her go? They have to! They aren’t charging her with anything—”
“They can’t even confirm her identity right now.” Mac closed in on him and kept his voice low. “Look, my buddy Ben is working the case. He’s doing everything possible, but this thing is a nightmare. With Celia’s ties to the agency, with Ronald’s dead body...hell, you know it’s a mess.”
“She can’t stay in interrogation forever!”
Mac looked away.
Oh, hell, no, Sullivan knew he wasn’t going to like this.
“They’ve moved her to a cell,” Mac said.
“No.” He shook his head. “Celia doesn’t belong—”
“Protective custody, okay? That’s what Ben is calling it right now. He’s trying to figure things out. Seems Celia gave him the name for some lady at the CIA. When he called her, she demanded that he keep Celia secure until she could arrive. And that’s all he’d tell me. Ben clammed up after that, and I knew he’d already been pushed too far.” Mac glanced up at the police station. “We need to go home for the night, man. Check on the family. Try to figure out our next move.”
His next move wasn’t going to be ditching Celia. Ever since they arrived at that police station, he’d been fighting to see her. “I’m not leaving.”
“You can’t do anything today. The CIA boss they called in should be here tomorrow and—”
“And how do we know that she can be trusted? How do we know that someone won’t swoop in here with federal ID and take Celia—then kill her? We can’t trust anyone right now. You know that.”
Mac focused on him. “We can trust each other. McGuires always stick together.”
Yes, they did. And if what Ronald had said was true...if he was still married to Celia... “She’s a McGuire, too.”
Mac didn’t have a comeback for that.
“Would you leave Elizabeth?” Sullivan pressed. “Just walk away while she was locked up and a killer could be closing in on her?”
“There are cops all around Celia. She’s—”
“We know cops can go bad.” They had personal experience with a cop going rogue. A cop they’d wrongly trusted for years. “Yeah, we have some friends in there, but we both know friendship doesn’t always stand up against money or threats. With the right leverage, anyone can turn.”
“You can’t break the woman out!”
And I can’t leave her.
Mac whistled. “Sully, look, you’re covered in soot and blood and you smell like a fire. At least just go home and shower. I’ll keep watch and make sure she’s not transferred out, okay? She won’t leave that building, and I know that’s what you’re afraid of.”
Sullivan’s back teeth had clenched.
“You’re worried the CIA will whisk her away and you won’t see her again,” Mac added.
“I can�
��t lose her.” He knew his voice sounded ragged, but there wasn’t much he could do about that tone.
“You won’t. I told you, I’ll stand watch, I’ll—”
But Sullivan had stalked around his brother. He was marching up those steps and heading into the police station.
Mac grabbed his arm and leaned in close. “Sully, don’t do anything stupid.”
He wouldn’t make a promise he couldn’t keep. “I’m not leaving until I see her.”
Mac searched his face, then gave a grim nod. “Guess it’s like that...”
“Yeah, it’s like that.” And anyone who got in his way would regret it. He stormed back inside the station and cut a path straight to Ben’s narrow office. He didn’t bother knocking—he just shoved that door wide-open and demanded, “I want to see my wife.”
Ben had his phone pressed to his ear. He stared at Sullivan a moment and said, “I understand the full seriousness of the situation. You have my word, the witness will be handled.” He swiped a hand over his sweating forehead. “Three, yes, that sounds good.”
Sullivan didn’t move from that doorway. The last time he’d seen Celia, she was in the back of a patrol car. He’d argued like hell at that scene, but the cops hadn’t listened to him. When a dead body was close, they had a tendency to overreact a bit.
“Right. Yes, yes, I understand,” Ben said into the phone. “I’ll see you then.” He hung up the phone and rose. “When a door is shut, Sullivan, it usually means people should stay the hell out.”
“My...wife,” Sullivan snarled. “You’ve had her here for hours. She didn’t get to speak to an attorney—”
“I brought that up to her. Said most folks asked for one,” Ben said as he maneuvered around his desk. “She refused. I wanted her to call in a lawyer, but she wouldn’t.”
A growl built in Sullivan’s throat. “You also can’t keep her here indefinitely.” He was aware of footsteps behind him. Sullivan glanced over his shoulder and saw Mac heading toward him.
“It’s for her protection,” Ben muttered.
Sullivan’s gaze snapped right back to him. “Bull. In your cell, she’s a sitting duck for whatever trouble comes her way.” He advanced on Ben. “The dead man today? He was CIA. How do you know that the next killer who comes calling won’t also be flashing CIA identification? Would you just turn her over to any bozo with a government ID?”