Deadly Secrets

by Lisa Phillips

  He couldn’t get the feel of her touch out of his mind. He wanted to hold on to it, savor it. Even while he knew he couldn’t admit he liked it. Or that he wanted more of it.

  There was too much going on to even consider something with Emma. They lived in different cities, she was technically a client of Double Down—even if she didn’t know it—and there were rules about making missions personal. And all that was before he got to his personal hang-ups. Or the possibility that Emma might succeed in her plan to get put in prison for murder to save the life of a woman she didn’t know all that well, who might be in this situation because she’d gotten herself there.

  Perkins shoved open the door, frustration lining her face. “Okay?”

  He nodded. “You?”

  “Thank you.”

  Mint glanced over and saw a redheaded man who looked like a gnome hand Emma a stack of first aid supplies. She came to him, a tentative look on her face. He didn’t wait for her to ask, just sat so she could do what he couldn’t do, because he couldn’t reach that far. She stood behind him, Perkins in front.

  “Jones got away?” he asked his teammate. He didn’t want Perkins walking around to look at his wound. She would see what Emma had seen and then things would change. He didn’t need his teammates looking at him with pity. Even if they called it compassion.

  It was enough that Emma had seen. And maybe, just maybe, he’d wanted her to. He could admit that to himself at least. Then he shoved the idea aside and winced, since she’d slathered something cold and gooey over his cuts.

  Perkins curled her lip. “I got the license plate on his car. I called it in.”

  “Any word from the others about Kerri?” He heard Emma’s intake of breath at his question.

  Perkins shook her head. “Not yet.” But he knew that look.

  His teammate didn’t think much of Kerri’s chance at a long life. If she did survive, she would be affected in a way that might never go away. And Emma would carry the guilt of that for the rest of her life. Mint understood. There were things in him that had been imprinted so deep, he would carry them forever. Things that couldn’t be seen. Touched, with those soft fingers of hers.

  She worked efficiently right now. Barely making contact skin to skin. She pressed tape over the gauze she’d placed on his cuts. They weren’t bad but—like her gunshot wound—they would likely get infected if he just left them.

  Two EMTs strode in the front door. Perkins glanced at the manager. “We should get out of here before the actual police show up.”

  Mint nodded.

  “I’m done.”

  He turned to watch Emma carry two handfuls of wrappers to the nearest trash can. Perkins walked out the back fire exit with them. The sheriff was just walking in the front door when they moved around to the cars. Perkins’s was barely drivable.

  “I’ll never get the deposit back on that now.”

  No one smiled.

  Perkins collected her things, and they piled into Mint’s car.

  He turned on the engine and pulled out, asking his teammate, “Will your ID hold up when the sheriff runs whose car that is?”

  “If it doesn’t, then I took a job with the wrong private security firm.”

  Mint nodded, understanding exactly where she was coming from on that.

  “I knew you weren’t a real FBI agent,” Emma said from the backseat. She left those words hanging in the air, and Perkins shifted in her seat to face their charge.

  “We’re here to keep you safe,” his teammate said.

  “By lying to me and putting Kerri’s life at risk. Aaron Jones is going to kill her now.”

  Perkins continued as though she hadn’t said anything, “And to find out who in Washington DC is blackmailing people with information so sensitive, one woman already took her life.”

  Emma said nothing.

  “Do you know Senator Rachel Harris?” Perkins paused long enough that Mint figured Emma nodded. “A few weeks ago she was kidnapped. Her best friend, Alexis, was framed for it. Bradley Harris, Rachel’s brother, worked with the FBI. Then they were taken as well, and Alexis got strapped with a bomb. A man who worked for the blackmailer was determined to get Bradley and Rachel’s inheritance money.”

  Emma’s voice was breathy when she said, “A bomb?”

  Out the corner of his eye, Mint saw Perkins nod. “Mint was the one who saved Alexis.”

  He wouldn’t exactly have put it that way.

  Perkins continued, “Rachel is safe, and now Bradley and Alexis are married. But we still don’t know who the blackmailer is. What we do know is that Aaron Jones works for him. We think he knows who the man is.”

  Emma stayed silent again for another moment. “A blackmailer?” Her voice was flat.

  She knew. Mint could hear it in the tone. He said, “Who is it?”

  “I don’t know his name.”

  “Does Aaron know?”

  “I don’t know,” Emma said. “I think Aaron works for him, but he’s only here so I’ll take the rap for the senator’s death.”

  Perkins said, “He could be here under the blackmailer’s authority. But Aaron could also be trying to save his own skin.”

  “Does that matter?” Emma asked, her tone short. “Kerri’s life is what matters.”

  “Agreed,” Mint said. But it was easier than finding her. They needed Aaron to lead them to where he was holding Kerri and that would take time. “He came out to shoot at us today—”

  “He was shooting at you,” Emma put in.

  “Okay. He came to shoot at me—”

  “Because he knew I wasn’t going to the FBI. Before I even knew.”

  “Emma—”

  “Don’t, okay? You all have this plan, and you’re on your mission to do whatever. But this is my life. It’s Kerri’s life. All you’ve done so far is jerk me around and lie to me. So pull over, because I’m getting out. I’m going to the real FBI, and I’m going to get Aaron to let Kerri go before she dies from whatever he did to her that left blood all over her house when he kidnapped her.” She paused. He didn’t turn around. He could hear her breath coming in great heaves.

  He could tell her that was nothing but shock, but would it help? She wasn’t likely going to accept much from him or give anything else to him. At least, not without some kind of exchange. Maybe if Kerri was already safe. If it was only Emma whose life was on the line.

  “We’re not stopping,” Perkins said. “And we’re not letting you out. If we’re going to find Aaron Jones, have any hope of saving Kerri, and manage to bring this blackmailer to light, then Double Down needs your help, Emma. In return, you get a shot at a future that doesn’t involve being in prison for murder.”

  “You think I care about that?”

  “Everyone cares about that,” Mint said, not at all happy with the fact she was still thinking about doing this. He needed Kerri found before Emma did something she couldn’t take back.

  Perkins shifted again, about to say something else. Her phone buzzed. She looked at the screen, then up at him. “We have a serious problem.”

  Chapter 8

  “We have a lot of problems,” Mint said. “You’re gonna have to be specific.”

  Perkins shot him a look. In the back seat, Emma watched the interplay between the two colleagues. Perkins had ditched the FBI jacket and badge. Emma was pretty sure it was actually a crime to impersonate a federal agent. And she was still mad about the fact they’d lied to her. She’d thought they were taking her to turn herself in, in order to save Kerri, when they’d had a totally different plan.

  She’d trusted them. In turn, they’d provided her with plenty of ammunition should she choose to go the route that would cause them a great deal of trouble with the authorities. Were they trusting her to not be that vindictive, or that she wouldn’t lash back out of anger, or had they simply covered their proverbial butts in case of such an outcome? Emma didn’t know which it was. She felt like she was floundering—in every aspect of this situation�
��and so far out of her depth right now she wanted to laugh. But the fact she could barely breathe with all the stuff swirling around her meant there was no way she would.

  She shifted in the seat, huddling closer to the door. Her arm hurt, despite the medication Perkins had given her. Antibiotics took time, but the pain meds should be kicking in right about now. Was Kerri okay? Emma couldn’t relax until she knew the other woman was all right. Or, at least, that she was being taken care of.

  It was like being torn in a dozen different directions.

  “Emma’s face just hit national news,” Perkins said, glancing back at her. “And the FBI has given up calling the senator’s death a suicide. It’s murder now.”

  Emma saw the glance out the corner of her eye, but didn’t turn away from the window. She wanted to watch the world go by outside.

  “The FBI are stepping up their search for her.”

  “As a murder suspect?” Mint asked. Maybe not because he wanted to know. Maybe he just wanted ammo to try and reassure her.

  “Well, no.” Perkins answered.

  “That’s grea—”

  “But they’re calling her a person of interest.” Perkins’s voice had a tone to it. “Everyone knows what that means.”

  Mint started to argue.

  “They think I killed him,” Emma said to the window.

  Perkins said, “What did you do with the clothes you were wearing that night?”

  “Tossed them in the trash at a rest stop in Nebraska.”

  “Good.”

  “It’s not good.” She turned to the other woman then. “I was there. My blood will be at the scene.”

  “Fleeing, because you were hurt, too.”

  She didn’t want to absorb even the promise of hope in the other woman’s eyes. “And when they find the gun with my prints on it?”

  Perkins’s eyes widened a fraction before she could squash the reaction.

  “Now you get it,” Emma said. “You get why the FBI wants to talk to me, whether they found the gun or not. I was there. Aaron was there. Shots were fired, and the Senator died.” She choked on those last couple of words. Though, not for the reasons they would think. It was more than the fact he’d been her boss, and she’d been a party to his death.

  More than Kerri.

  More than Aaron Jones.

  More than the truth that Senator Francis Sadler hadn’t even been a good man.

  She said, “So what does it matter that the FBI think I’m involved? I was. And I’d rather take my chances with them than with Aaron Jones when I have to explain everything. Even if they’ll probably arrest me for murder, or being complicit in a murder, or something.”

  Mint sighed. Why he was so bothered by the idea of her going to jail, she didn’t know. Except that it would put her out of reach to provide the information they wanted about the blackmailer... Something she didn’t even want to think about right now.

  “It will stop Aaron from hurting people.”

  “No,” Mint said. “It won’t.” He didn’t turn back, as he was still driving. “This guy has one play. To force you to confess by hurting someone you care about. Best friends or not, Aaron knows you don’t want anything to happen to Kerri, so he’s banking on you doing this.”

  “Well it’s all messed up now. I didn’t do it, and he knows.”

  Perkins said, “He had to have been following us. And somehow he knew I wasn’t an FBI agent.”

  Mint shot her a look.

  “Or not enough of one that he could tell.”

  Emma wasn’t even sure she wanted them to explain that to her right now. She had enough swirling in her head already, she wasn’t sure she could handle confusing, even if it was the truth.

  “Why did he try and kill Mint?” She wasn’t sure who she was asking, but needed to know. The last thing she wanted right now was another person hurt because of her. Mint had been injured, but it could easily have been so much worse.

  Perkins said, “Because he wants you alone and vulnerable.”

  “The first answer is that he’s a hothead and he’s reacting. Going on instinct. Perkins’s answer is the second,” Mint clarified. “Aaron is flying by the seat of his pants. He still needs you to confess to that murder he committed, and if he can get that result, then he’s willing to do almost anything. Other than that, who knows? He’s tortured people before.”

  Emma turned back to the window. She tried to pray for Kerri, but the words wouldn’t come. All she had was the silent cry of her heart, and she thanked the God she wanted to believe in so badly that it was enough. “He’s going to kill her, isn’t he?”

  And he wouldn’t do anything to minimize the pain.

  For a couple of minutes neither of them spoke. Mint had to realize the subterfuge he’d undertaken to try and get her to talk with Perkins instead of a real FBI agent was what had caused this. If Kerri died by Aaron Jones’s hand, responsibility could be placed on his shoulders. How had he justified that kind of gamble? He had to have known he was putting Kerri’s life at risk. And still he’d done it.

  A sour feeling rolled through her stomach.

  Perkins said, “Two men we work with are looking for her.”

  That was something. But was it enough? She stared at the back of Mint’s neck between the seat and the headrest. “Do you even care that she could die?”

  Her voice had been quiet, but she was sure he heard her.

  “You want me to grieve for a woman I don’t know? People die every day. People die every minute. Should I shed a tear for each of them?”

  She wanted to kick the back of the seat.

  “I have my mission. It’s you.”

  “Don’t give me that. You were sending me with Perkins so she could get me to talk, right?”

  “And then I was going to find Kerri.”

  She didn’t let that penetrate. “Because finding her would lead you to Aaron.”

  “Do I want every part of this wrapped up? Yes,” he said. “I’m not going to apologize for doing my job. And you don’t get to judge that. Not when you don’t know the first thing about me.”

  “Right back atcha.” He wanted to judge her willingness to turn herself in to the FBI, but he didn’t want her to give him back the same courtesy? He wanted the results he wanted, but he also didn’t want this to get personal.

  Fine.

  It wouldn’t get personal.

  “Pull over. I’m getting out.”

  **

  Mint kept driving.

  “I want to get out.”

  He ignored her and stuck to his route on the highway. There was no way, after they’d all gotten shot at by Aaron, that he was going to let Emma go off on her own. Regardless of how she felt about him and his methods.

  “Perkins call in,” he said without taking his eyes off the road. “I want an update.”

  “On it.” She didn’t argue. She also knew he meant an update on the search for Kerri as well as Aaron.

  Emma yelled, “Let me out of this car!”

  Mint ignored her.

  “Davis whatever your real name is, you pull this car over right now!”

  His lips twitched. If he’d had a mom, she’d probably have spoken to him exactly like that. Too bad for Emma he hadn’t. Which meant he’d never learned to respond to demands like that. His arms didn’t even twitch on a reflex. Nothing but a flash of amusement that she thought might work—or was at least worth a try.

  She didn’t think too much of him. That was clear.

  “Malone.”

  “What?”

  “My real name,” he said. “It’s Davis Malone.”

  She’d pushed, and he was pushing back. She might have the strength in her to have faced all this so far, but that didn’t mean she was going to push him over. He wasn’t about to let her tread on him. Not when he was the one who had the skills to actually take care of her. That was a better solution by far than allowing her to put herself in even more danger.

  It occurred to him that do
ing that in a controlled way—surveillance—while she did something benign like head to the diner for a shift, could draw out Aaron. She would jump on that opportunity in a heartbeat. Which was probably why Mint dismissed it. That was a last-resort option, and in the meantime, they had other ways to work on clearing this up.

  Emma’s face had hit national news. Another snag to be dealt with. He didn’t need the local sheriff getting in their business, regardless of whether the man thought he was “helping.”

  Whatever they were going to do, Mint figured it had to be clean, fast and effective.

  Emma kicked the back of his seat and let out a frustrated sound. Letting him know that she was still there, and she was still mad.

  Mint kept driving. Ten minutes later he pulled into the park where the company RV was hooked up to electricity. They didn’t need the free Wi-Fi. They made their own hotspot that connected them to the main office in Virginia—and whatever else they needed access to.

  He parked the car and got out, opening the back door for Emma. She had her arms folded across her chest. He reached over her and unbuckled her belt. The cuts on his back smarted, but he ignored them. It wasn’t the first time he’d pushed pain to the back of his mind and determined to get on with what was in front of him. Probably wouldn’t be the last time either.

  “Let’s go.”

  She stared at the RV, not a small amount of curiosity on her face. Eventually it won out, and she moved from the car into the vehicle. Inside was a bank of monitors and computers they’d replaced the queen beds with. The bunks were still used, when they needed sleep. The kitchen was still intact and fully functional.

  He got to work cooking bacon in the oven, mostly so he could work while it browned and not have to worry about keeping an eye on it so much as if he had to flip it in a pan. “Perkins, get the camera set up.”

  The slender woman set her hand on her hip and shot Mint a pointed look.

  He said, “Please.”

  Perkins narrowed her eyes on him for a second, then moved through the RV, doing as he’d asked. Emma stood by the door. She stared at the inside like it was an alien planet. Finally, she looked at him. “You guys are criminals, aren’t you? You think you’re above the law, pretending to be federal agents.” She included Perkins in her accusation.