Charmed and Dangerous [Clandestine Affairs 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)

by Zara Chase

  “They’ve been in there for a hell of a long time,” Axel said, scowling.

  Riley shrugged. “You know what women are like.”

  “Yes, but I didn’t think Maddie was into all that primping and sharing-secrets stuff, especially with a woman she barely knows.”

  “Looks like this is a bust,” Riley said, yawning. “Maddie hasn’t given any indication that anyone who’s spoken to her is the slightest bit suspicious, and I haven’t sensed anything’s wrong. Still, we’ll give it another half hour.”

  “Shame, I thought it would work.” Axel grinned. “Does that give us an excuse to stay a bit longer with the lovely Maddie?”

  “I already told you, buddy. You don’t need to invent excuses.”

  The two men had subconsciously wandered toward the corridor leading to the bathrooms. There was a line forming outside the ladies’ room, and mutterings about the length of time its occupants were taking. Pearson happened to pass them at that moment and Riley grabbed his arm, his danger antennae now on high alert.

  “How many toilets in there?” he asked tersely.

  “Just the one.”

  Riley and Axel barged through the crowd and tried the door to the ladies’ bathroom. It was locked. Riley hammered on it with his fist.

  “Are you okay, Maddie?” he yelled.

  No answer.

  “Is there a back way out of there?” he asked Pearson.

  “No, just a window.”

  “Fuck! Stand back.”

  Quite a crowd had now gathered as Riley and Axel put their shoulders to the door and shoved as hard as they could. The lock popped and they fell into the room. Maddie’s purse was upended in the basin, but there was no sign of her. The window was banging open.

  “Shit!” Riley and Axel said together.

  “What’s happened?” Copeland asked, running in to join them.

  “Your captain,” Riley replied. “How well do you know her?”

  “It’s her?” Copeland looked genuinely shocked. “But she’s worked with me for a long time, and I trusted her completely. I had absolutely no idea.”

  “You told her Maddie was bringing the papers here tonight?”

  “Well yes, she needed to know.”

  “Come on, we have to find them.”

  Riley and Axel ran back down the corridor, Copeland at their heels. Riley tried to remember the external layout of the place and figured the bathroom window probably gave out onto the narrow road leading to the parking garage.

  “She has to be desperate to do something so public, especially when she knew it was a trap,” Riley said as he raced along.

  “She is desperate,” Axel replied. “If she thought she’d been named then she had no choice but to try and get those papers. She knew Maddie would need to use the restroom sooner or later and would ask her to go with her.”

  “Shit, we played right into her slimy hands,” Riley said grimly. “Her cover’s blown now, which means she has nothing to lose. That makes her dangerous.”

  “Where would she have gone?” Axel asked Copeland as they stood outside the bathroom window, looking up and down the street. There was no sign of either Maddie or Mance. That would have been too easy.

  “Give me a moment to think.”

  “There’s no time,” Riley replied, resisting the urge to shake the man. “Maddie’s life’s on the line here.”

  “Presumably Mance was the middle-woman for whoever’s doing this,” Axel said.

  “Yeah, so someone would have been waiting, probably with a car, for them to come through this window. Maddie wouldn’t have gone willingly.”

  “Unless Mance pulled a gun on her.”

  Riley swore. “I still think someone had to be waiting out here for them.”

  “They couldn’t have parked here. The street’s too narrow.”

  “That’s true.” Riley nodded. “The accomplice would have no idea when they’d come through the window—”

  “Unless Mance rang his cell.”

  “Even so, a car blocking the road this narrow for even a short time would have been noticed.”

  “So you think she was dragged off to a car nearby.”

  “Did Mance drive herself here?”

  “No,” Copeland replied. “She came with me. There’s a strip mall just around the corner. If she has an accomplice, I’m betting he’s parked up there.”

  “Why not the parking garage?” Riley asked.

  “Quicker to get away from a mall that’s not under cover.”

  “Okay, show me.”

  They ran off in that direction, but there was nothing in the mall’s parking lot to attract their attention.

  “They couldn’t have gotten away so quickly,” Riley said. “We’re only a minute or two behind them, I’m sure, and Maddie would have dragged her feet. They must have gone the other way.”

  “The other direction just leads to a block of condos,” Copeland said.

  “We need to check it out. It’s all we have to go on.”

  Riley ran back so fast that he almost missed it.

  “Hold up!” he yelled, stopping abruptly.

  “What is it?” Axel asked.

  Riley was sick with worry for Maddie. Even so, he couldn’t prevent a small admiring smile from breaking through his defenses.

  “This,” he said, holding up a crystal bead. “Our girl has left us a trail.”

  * * * *

  At first Maddie was too angry to be afraid. How could she have been so dense? She’d liked Shirley Mance on the several occasions they’d met, wishing she could have dealt with her rather than that stuffed shirt Copeland. What did that say about her ability to read people?

  “How could you do it?” she asked as they glared at one another across the small bathroom. “Those men have given their all for this country and you exploit them like their lives are worth nothing.”

  “Where’re your father’s notes?”

  “Somewhere you’ll never find them.”

  “You’d better hope for your sake that I do. You’re no use to me without them.”

  “And I’ll be surplus to requirements if I hand them over, so why would I do that?”

  “I’m no killer.”

  “Really?” Maddie sent her a quelling glance. “Tell that to the guys who disappeared.”

  “I was done here anyway. Your dear dad stirred things up and got Copeland involved, so it was getting too risky. Besides, I’ve made enough out of it and I just need time to get away. It’s all arranged, but I can’t do that until I’m sure the people I work for are safe.”

  “Of course you can’t,” Maddie said sarcastically.

  “Tell me what names are in those notes.”

  “No.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake! I don’t have time for this.” Mance extracted her cell phone from her pocket and hit the dial button. “We’re coming out,” she said to the person who answered.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Maddie said, folding her arms across her chest.

  “Oh yes you are.”

  Mance drew a pistol from her purse and nodded toward the window. “I will use this gun if I have to,” she said. “Never doubt it.”

  “With a roomful of ex-soldiers on the other side of that door?” Maddie quirked a brow. “I don’t think so.”

  “And I don’t think you realize what you’re dealing with. I’m just a very small cog in a huge wheel. And, just like you, I’m expendable if I don’t clear up this mess. So, you see, I have nothing to lose.” She jerked the gun toward the window. “Open it!”

  Maddie saw the stark determination in Mance’s eye and knew she meant what she said. She would use the gun because she was more afraid of the people she worked for than of what would happen to her if she was caught.

  Maddie thought fast. Riley and Axel would soon miss her. She just needed to play for time. As slowly as she thought she could get away with, she reached up for the window catch, pretending not to be able to reach it.

  �
��Go on, you can do it.”

  “It’s stuck.”

  Mance swore, walked up behind Maddie, jammed the barrel of the gun into her kidneys, and reached for the catch herself. It opened easily.

  “Climb through.”

  This was all happening too fast. Maddie needed to do something to slow the process down. She thought about yelling for help, but the restroom was too remote for her to be heard. With no other choice available to her she closed the toilet lid, clambered up onto it, and pulled herself through the open window frame. Perhaps she could drop down on the outside and run for it.

  She abandoned that idea when she saw a bull of a man standing directly outside, waiting to catch her. Mance followed quickly behind her. The man took one of Maddie’s arms, Mance took the other, and her feet barely touched the ground as they sped her away. Anger gave way to fear, but along with that fear came the determination to survive. She had a lot more to learn from Riley and Axel yet. Hold that thought!

  Struggling against the man’s iron grip, Maddie’s fingers got caught in her strand of crystals and an idea occurred to her. The man and Mance seemed intent upon spiriting her away and were looking straight ahead, not at her. Trying not to use anything other than her fingers because sudden jolting of her arms might alert them, Maddie took three attempts to break the strand of crystals and caught the first few as they trickled into her hands.

  Then she allowed them to drop onto the ground, one precious bead at a time, like an untidy snail’s trail.

  Maddie was frog-marched into an apartment block, up two flights of cracked concrete stairs to the second floor. An open walkway with an iron railing ran along the outside of the individual doors. Mance stopped outside of number 207 and the man released her arm in order to unlock the door. Maddie managed to drop her final crystal just before she was shoved through the door. She heard it bounce and then roll toward the iron railing. Please God don’t let it fall over the edge. If it did, Riley and Axel would never find her.

  * * * *

  The trail of crystals was spasmodic but sufficient for the guys to realize Maddie was being taken to the nearest apartment block. It was an old building overdue for renovation. Cheap rents for transient residents, Riley assumed. It was that sort of district. Copeland had his men deployed around the area. No one was getting out, that was for sure. Riley didn’t give a fuck about Mance and her co-conspirators. His only priority was getting Maddie out in one piece. Then he’d go after the bad guys and they’d regret the fucking day they were born. He seldom allowed his temper to get the better of him in combat situations, but the manner in which these cowards had murdered Maddie’s father and appeared to have the same fate in mind for her made for an exception to the rule. He only hoped she’d had the presence of mind to pretend that he had the papers. That would be enough to keep her alive until Riley and Axel could rescue her.

  “They used the stairs,” Axel said, pointing to a crystal halfway up the first flight.

  “If they’ve got her inside an apartment then we’re fucked,” Copeland said. “If we break in, they’ll shoot her.”

  “Let’s find the apartment first,” Riley said. “Then we’ll think up a plan.”

  The three of them ran lightly up two flights and along the landing on the second floor. There was one crystal at the beginning of the walkway, and then nothing.

  “Shit!” Riley thumped his fist against the nearest wall. “We have no idea which apartment they’re in.”

  It wasn’t the sort of block that had a concierge, so they didn’t have a clue what to do next. Knocking on doors could get Maddie killed.

  “We need to keep looking,” Axel said. “Unless she ran out of crystals, there must be another one somewhere.”

  All three men crouched along the landing, not wishing to be seen from any of the apartments.

  Nothing.

  “Look in here,” Riley said, pointing to the gutter that ran along the edge of the walkway. “It might have rolled off.”

  It was Copeland who found it. He called quietly to the others, who joined him at the middle of the walkway.

  “Only problem is, which apartment?” Axel asked. “It’s fallen midway between two doors, and both of them have got the drapes closed.”

  Riley motioned to the others to join him at the end of the walkway, in an alcove close to the elevators.

  “The way I see it,” he said, “they’ve improvised. I’m guessing this is a place where they kept vets before moving them on, and they’re using it today to hold Maddie until they get the papers. Mance won’t want the people she works for to know that she fucked up and we’re onto her, so she’ll try and clean up her own mess.”

  “Which means,” Axel added, “that it’s probably just her and one other guy in there.”

  “Right. She would have needed some local guy to look after the vets until they were moved on.”

  “Still, it only takes one person with a gun, and there has to be at least two of them.”

  “Let’s see if we can reduce the odds. You got Mance’s number in your cell?” he asked Copeland.

  “You’re assuming an awful lot,” Copeland said.

  “It’s a case of best guessing,” Riley replied tersely. “Besides, have you got a better idea?”

  “No, and of course I have her number.”

  He handed his phone to Riley, who hit the dial button. Mance answered on the first ring.

  “It’s Maddox,” he said. “I have what you want.”

  “Be outside the center in five minutes. If it checks out, you get her back.”

  “How do I know you’ll let her go?”

  “Because I’m in this for money and I don’t do murder.”

  Riley made a lot of tutting noises. “Let me talk to her, or it’s no dice.”

  “Just a moment.”

  “Riley?” Maddie sounded as mad as hell.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Two of them to kidnap little ol’ me.”

  Mance’s voice came back on the phone, but Riley already had his suspicions confirmed. Got to hand it to Maddie, she was smart.

  “All right, I guess I have no choice. I’ll see you in five.”

  “Not me. My associate will find you.”

  The line went dead.

  “Now we wait,” Riley said.

  Less than a minute later heavy footsteps echoed along the walkway. Riley and Axel brought the guy down before he even realized they were there. They took his handgun and pushed him none too gently against the wall. Riley was disappointed but not surprised to recognize the man as one of the trustees from the center.

  “How many in there with Maddie?” he asked.

  “Just Mance.”

  “Give me the key to the apartment.”

  The man handed it over. “No need to look at me like that. I was made to—”

  “Save it! Where’s she holding Ms. McGuire?”

  “She’s in the bedroom. Mance is in the living room.”

  “You better not be lying,” Riley said to the man in such a mordent tone that the guy actually quaked.

  “I’m not. This isn’t who I am. I had debts. I was coerced—”

  “You’re not just going to let yourself in, are you?” Copeland asked.

  “Why not?” Riley shrugged. “She’ll be expecting this punk. By the time she realizes her mistake, it’ll be too late.”

  “You stay with him,” Axel said to Copeland. “Riley and I have got this.”

  “You sure?”

  Riley and Axel didn’t bother to answer. Instead they made their way to the outside of 207 and waited. They couldn’t hear any sounds from inside, but they hadn’t expected to. Riley consulted his watch, both men focused on what they had to do. It was what they were trained for and what they did best. Implacably calm, Riley counted down the seconds, checked his weapon, and stood up. Motioning to Axel to take the opposite side of the door, he slid the key in the lock and kicked the door open wide.

  Mance was seated on a rat
ty couch. So, too, was Maddie, and Mance’s gun was held against the side of her forehead.

  * * * *

  “Did you think I was that stupid?” Mance asked, glaring at Riley.

  “The thought crossed my mind.”

  “The bitch left a trail for you.” Mance made a scoffing sound. “Thought I hadn’t noticed.”

  “So now you’re going to kill her?”

  “I’m not a killer, but I am a survivor. Give me those papers and a head start and no one needs to get hurt. Otherwise…” She pressed the gun harder against Maddie’s temple.

  Riley scoffed. “Go right ahead and shoot. You won’t get out of here alive if you do.”

  “I’ve seen the way you look at her,” Mance replied. “You’ve got the hots for her real bad. You won’t risk letting her die.”

  “Lady, I’m a Navy SEAL. We don’t let personal feelings get in the way of duty.” Riley and Axel both stood with their legs slightly apart and fixed her with steely gazes that made Maddie quake, even though they weren’t directed at her. “Not ever.”

  “I am not going to face a court-martial,” Mance replied. “But it doesn’t need to come to that. Just give me those papers and let me out of here, that way everyone wins.”

  Riley shook his head. “Ain’t gonna happen.”

  “What do you care about a few vets whose lives were finished anyway? They did some good on these drugs tests, helped speed things up. The FDA is so damned strict about stuff like that, you would not believe.”

  Mance was clearly losing patience. She was also as nervous as hell. Maddie could see that her forehead was dewy with perspiration, and the hand holding the gun was no longer quite so steady. Ranting on, like having two pissed-off SEALs in the room with their guns trained on her was no big deal, was a dead giveaway, too. She wasn’t sure if that would make things easier for Riley or Axel or if it made Mance less predictable.

  Hell, there had to be something she could do to move matters along. She wasn’t just going to sit here placidly while a deranged woman used her for target practice. Maddie was beyond afraid. Of course she didn’t want to die, but she’d kill Riley and Axel herself if they backed down for her sake. Not that they would, of course. Mance had got that bit entirely wrong. Neither of them had any particular feelings for her. Besides, this wasn’t about her anymore. It was about finishing what her dad had started.