by Kimberly Rae
“I think he might not know,” Cole said. “Things have gotten kind of hairy with his investigation.”
The officer smirked but refrained from saying more. Cole held the door for Meagan and then helped her down the outside stairs. It was ridiculous how cumbersome a simple thing like stairs could be when wearing handcuffs and a waist chain, and getting into his car was even worse.
Needing to fill the silence, Meagan said, “This is a nice car. Yours?”
“Just a rental for now.” He drove out of the prison parking lot and Meagan hoped she would never see the place again. “I don’t seem to have much time for car shopping lately.” He put in a CD and Meagan recognized it was the group he said was his favorite. “I’m not into mint green myself, but it was the cheapest option I could get right away.”
“It’d make a fun nail polish color.”
“Exactly.” He glanced over at her with a smile, but it fell when his gaze dropped to her hands. He turned the wheel and stopped the car on the side of the road.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“I can’t stand seeing you in those cuffs.” He reached across and opened the glove compartment. It dropped onto her knees and he clammered around behind a hammer and two more CDs to pull out another set of handcuffs.
“So you’re going to add a second set?”
At that his smile returned. “I’m hoping the standard key will work on yours.” He removed the key from his set and tried it on the cuffs on her wrists. With a click, she was free. He pulled the cuffs and the chain off and tossed them in the backseat while she rubbed her wrists and stretched her arms.
“Thank you.”
He pointed his chin toward the backseat before maneuvering the car into traffic again. “Remind me to put those back on before we take you into the Federal Building. I’m not sure what Steve’s plan is, but I have a feeling I won’t like it.”
“Since it involves me wearing this hideous outfit, I already know I don’t.”
“Would it help if I said you look cute in orange?”
“No.”
He laughed. “Then I won’t say it.” He pulled into a fast food parking lot. “I’d take you someplace nice since you just got out of the slammer, but you don’t seem to want to show off the new clothes. How does a drive through biscuit sound?”
“Wonderful. With grape jelly please.”
He ordered for them both and she tried to hide when he drove up to pay. He noticed and offered her the coat draped across the middle consul. “I hate wearing coats. You might as well use it.”
She thanked him and pulled it across her lap to cover as much of her outfit as possible, but then removed it once they had their food. “I’m tempted to purposefully drop jelly on this jumpsuit. It would serve Steve right to have to get it cleaned.”
“No comment on that.”
With her first bite, jelly dripped from the biscuit and landed on her leg. Cole laughed and she hunted for a napkin to wipe at the stain. “I promise I did not do that on purpose. Really.” She dipped the napkin in her water and attacked the purple splotch. “Will this go on my permanent record, do you think?”
He did not answer and she glanced up to see he was pulling into a parking lot. “Where are we?”
His face was hard. “My workplace.”
__________________________
Tuesday, January 6
10:05 a.m.
Cole avoided looking at the building and ignored the tightening in his gut. “Meagan,” he said, wishing he could get his voice to sound less solemn. He walked around the mint-ice-cream-colored car and opened the door for her. “What I’m going to tell you and show you today needs to remain a secret. Can you agree to that?”
He could see hesitation in her beautiful eyes, shadowed by dark circles. She clasped her hands in front of her, as if still wearing the handcuffs. “I—I can’t promise that until I know what it is.” Her eyes locked on the nondescript building. It sported a sign with a computer company logo. “The windows are tinted,” she said. “You can’t see inside.”
“That’s purposeful.” He took her hand and her surprised gaze traveled to his face. “I work for the Department of Justice. We are a specialized unit here that sometimes partners with other agencies, like the FBI, but we keep this location and what we do here under the radar for the safety of the workers and their families. I will take you inside if you promise you will not share our work or especially our location with anyone.”
She searched his eyes and he let her. Her hand remained in his, and after enough time had passed that he started to shiver, she said, “I promise that unless I see illegal activity, I won’t tell anyone.”
“Good enough.” He opened the passenger door she’d shut and pulled out his coat. “You should wear this.”
“Aren’t you cold?”
He put it over her shoulders. “My jacket is thicker than that jumpsuit.”
She snuggled into it and he wondered if it would smell like vanilla when he got it back. Her walk was slow toward the building. “Are you frightened?” he asked.
The wind blew and she brushed hair out of her face. “Embarrassed. Are there people in there? I look like a clown who forgot her wig and big floppy shoes.”
He laughed out loud. “Well, I’ve seen worse.”
“If you’re talking about my pajamas, beware.”
They were at the door, Cole still chuckling, when she stopped and whispered, “Okay, yes, I am afraid.”
He reached up and gently touched her cheek, letting his eyes linger on hers until the wind blew cold air and some sense back into him. “Come inside.” He held the door open and watched closely as Meagan took tentative steps into his building. He tried to see the interior from her perspective. Drab. Dark. No decorations. About as opposite her setting at Rahab’s Rope as it got. “Only four guys work in this section, including me,” he explained. “None of us have much of a knack for making a place feel like home.”
She stood in the center and turned counter-clockwise until she had surveyed their entire section, complete with four desks, each with a chair and wastebasket, and little else. “I’m glad to hear none of you think this is homey.”
“To me, at least, this place will never feel like home.” He led her to his desk. “It feels like war. Or the middle of the night just after a nightmare.” He pulled over a second chair from the desk to his right. “The guys must be in a meeting right now.”
“That’s a blessing. You won’t have to explain your visitor who looks like she escaped from prison.”
“A shame. We could have made up a good story.”
She sat at his desk and looked up at him. “So what is the mystery of what you do, Cole Fleming?”
Why did he want to tell her everything? Why did it feel important that she knew who he really was? He sat and rolled his chair close to hers. He turned on his computer and felt the familiar tension when their site came up. Meagan gasped at the young girl on the screen, her face so innocent, like Sadie’s once was.
“Cole...”
Meagan’s hands gripped the armrests. She slid her chair backwards. He turned it so she was facing him rather than the computer. “We call her Cupcake.” Meagan winced and he rushed on. “She’s not real. She’s a digital girl. We upload her and within seconds get hits from men all over the country who are willing to pay to watch her.” He shut down the screen. “I don’t need to tell you the details. You can guess. It makes me sick, but this little girl is helping us track, arrest, and convict child predators. That’s my job, Meagan, to find creeps who harm children and put them away.”
Meagan eyes were full of tears. “And she’s not real?”
“No. She’s not real.”
He heard a little sob then Meagan put her hands over her face. She stood and took a few steps away from the desk. He followed. “I just—” She began to cry. “I was so afraid you—” Her hands fluttered a bit and then she whirled and they were around his neck.
Out of inst
inctive response, he wrapped his arms around her waist, and once the stunned feeling wore off, he became aware of how very good she felt. He tightened his arms around her small frame. “Meagan...”
“Hey! Sorry.”
Cole looked behind to see Matt, the co-worker whose chair he’d borrowed, standing two feet into the room in an awkward pose, as if he’d tried to stop mid-stride and had not quite succeeded. Meagan pulled away from Cole and searched for a tissue, wiping her eyes with her hand when she did not find one. Matt started to smile but his gaze dropped to her clothing and his eyebrows went up. “Uh...Cole? We don’t usually have visitors in here.”
“It’s okay,” Cole said. He turned to Meagan. “There’s a box of tissues in the bathroom. I’ll get it for you.”
She sniffed and he felt guilty for leaving her with Matt instead of letting her escape to the bathroom herself. But he needed a minute. If she had left, Matt would grill him about Meagan’s presence and especially about what might have happened had he not shown up just then. Cole needed to get his heart rate back to normal so he could pretend holding Meagan, even for a few seconds, had not been a complete distraction. He’d forgotten where he was.
It was no wonder the other guys never brought their wives to work. He grabbed the tissue box and headed back to his desk, where Meagan’s cheeks blazed almost as bright as her orange outfit. Had Matt said something to her, or could that telltale sign of emotion be because of him?
55
Tuesday, January 6
11:00 a.m.
Cole drove, speaking on the phone to Steve in such solemn tones Meagan would have worried had she not been so consumed with Matt’s comment. “We all agreed not to tell the full details of our job to anyone but wives or fiancés,” he’d said. “And none of us have brought anyone inside the building.” She had gestured toward the prison uniform and told Matt she was a reasonable exception, but questions had flooded her mind ever since.
What had she been thinking, throwing herself at Cole like that? Embarrassment burned up her neck and across her cheeks. Cole finished his call and Meagan searched for something to say in safe, small-talk territory. “Could we stop by the hospital before we go meet Steve? I’d like to check on Pops.”
“I’m afraid not.” He kept his focus on the heavy lunch traffic as he switched lanes. “He’s been secured in a special area of the hospital and is under guard day and night now.”
“Why?” She tucked Cole’s coat up tight to her chin. “What happened?”
“Nothing has yet,” he reassured. “It’s a precaution, but the danger you’re in should be taken seriously. From what Steve just told me, we shouldn’t stop at a hospital or anywhere but the Federal Building right now. And even that makes me nervous. This guy is a madman.”
“Lucias?”
Cole nodded. “He called the director last night and threatened to blow up the Federal Building if you’re not released with an apology by noon.”
She shuddered and pulled the coat tighter. “What is he thinking? Why is he doing this?”
“He’s in love with you.”
She scoffed. “That’s impossible. He doesn’t even know me.”
“I wish that were true.” He veered to the right to pull off the exit. “I’ve read his letters, Meagan. The man is obsessed with you.” She wasn’t sure if his frown was for the bottlenecked traffic on the road, or if it was for her. “I didn’t want to tell you,” he said, “but his letters have me concerned. He talks about me in the most recent ones, and even though the words are supposed to be from you, he’s clearly heading for jealous rage any time he sees you with me.”
She could not seem to get warm. She held her hands out to the heat coming through the vents, and resisted the urge to get Cole’s hammer from his glove compartment and hold it in her lap. She should have applied for a gun back when she had the chance. “Isn’t it bad, then, that you’re with me right now?”
“That’s why Steve called me. He and Baine just finished reading the letters. He wants us in Baine’s office immediately, where he can put you under guard and explain their plan to both of us.” He parked the car as close to the building as he could. “I hope Lucias isn’t here watching already. We don’t want to make him angry, since he’s a fuse waiting to be lit, but there’s no way I’m letting you walk across the street into that building by yourself.” He reached into the back and she cringed at the clanging of the chain and handcuffs. “I wish I didn’t have to do this,” he said, his voice low. He kept his eyes on the chain as he positioned it around her waist.
“Me too.” She held the chain out for him to attach it to the cuffs. “If a bomb does go off, I’m not going to be able to run very well.”
His eyes found hers and their gazes locked. “I will not leave your side,” he said. He had both her hands cradled inside his. His face moved slightly toward hers, but he came to an abrupt stop and looked out the back window, side windows, and the front. When he bowed his head and prayed aloud for her safety and a sense of peace, then asked for courage to protect her and wisdom to fight for her, she felt tears threaten. He said amen and lifted his head. “Are you ready?”
She wasn’t. She wanted to stay there, in his mint green car, her hands cocooned in his.
The phone rang and she thought the cliché about jumping out of one’s skin was not as far-fetched as she’d always believed. Cole answered and she could tell it was Steve’s voice on the line. Cole put the car in reverse and backed out of the parking space. “There’s a secondary entrance around back,” he said to her. “We can drive the car right up to it and there will only be a few feet where you’re exposed between the car and the building. Lucias stipulated ‘by noon’ not at noon, so they’re assuming he’s been waiting for us and knows we’re here now.”
She slunk down in her seat. “What about you?”
“I’ll park and be right behind you.”
“But you’ll be exposed, and it sounds like he’s angry with you right now, not me.”
He glanced her way with a half-smile. “I’ll be fine.”
“Yes, you will.” She tried to cross her arms. The cuffs resisted. “You promised you wouldn’t leave my side, so I want you to take me inside and have someone else park the car.”
He started to grin, but when he looked her way and his gaze took in the chain and cuffs, he sobered again. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, then added with a soft sigh, “I look forward to the day when you’re home again, with your grandfather, in your horrible pajamas and those cute bunny slippers, safe and sound.”
She blinked moisture from her eyes. It would do no good to cry now. Cole hadn’t brought the box of tissues with them. “When that day comes, you’re invited over for homemade macaroni and cheese and peanut-butter fudge.”
They reached the back of the building. Steve, Quinn and another man stood just inside the doorway. Steve’s gun was out and ready. Quinn’s was out and at his side. Cole stopped the car and gave her one long look. “First we have to get through today.”
__________________________
Tuesday, January 6
11:30 a.m.
Idiots. Lucias wished there really was a bomb in the building so he could get Meagan out and blow the rest of them to bits. He’d seen Meagan the moment Cole drove her into the parking lot in that stupid girly green car. He knew the exact moment Cole almost kissed her, and the exact moment he stopped and looked around. If Lucias had the skill of a sniper, Cole Fleming would be slumped over his steering wheel right now, blood dripping out of the hole in his head.
Now he had to wait while they talked inside about whatever useless plan they were surely creating. They would try to trap him, but he was smarter than they thought he was. He had his own plan.
The front door to the Federal Building opened and Lucias held his binoculars with one hand at a time while he wiped the other hand on the material of his seat. He needed dry skin to grip the binoculars hard, to not miss one second of his victory, to see every detail and know just when
Meagan left the parking lot and was free to be with him. He had originally decided to hide under a blanket in her backseat and surprise her after she had driven a few miles away from the FBI, but her car wasn’t there. They must have arrested her at home, or had someone take her car away. She would walk from the building to her store, and he would arrive just as she reached the sidewalk. She would get in his car and he would take her away, and they would be together forever. If there was a cloud nine, he would be on it.
Four men in dark suits, coats open, walked through the door and down the stairs. Their heads turned like robots with laser scan eyes, as if Lucias would be foolish enough to be in sight. Next came Cole and the man Steve had brought to Lucias’ house. Both wore earpieces. Cole said something, his hand to the earpiece. He checked his watch and Lucias checked the clock on his dash. Eleven forty-nine. They were cutting it close. Cole opened his jacket and put a hand to his gun and Lucias wanted to attack the big soldier. Why had he been the one to drive Meagan to the FBI? After that article in the newspaper yesterday, Meagan should have not wanted anything to do with the man. She continued to make unwise choices. He would have to talk with her about that when they were together.
She appeared in the doorway and his heart beat hard. She looked afraid. Steve held her arm and they walked down the stairs together, behind Cole and the other guy, with the four robots covering their sides. Meagan was a burning sun in the night sky, her orange prison uniform bright in the middle of all those dark suits. Some horrible person had put a chain around her and handcuffed her beautiful, feminine hands. He would ask her who had done that to her, and they would make that person pay.
At the bottom step, Steve stopped Meagan. He put a key in the handcuffs and opened them. He removed the chain from her waist. Lucias leaned forward and watched Steve’s mouth move. That would be the apology he had demanded. Now Steve would say goodbye and Meagan would walk away.