Bulletproof SEAL

by Carol Ericson

  Quinn shoved himself off his barstool and strode to the back of the room. Turning the corner to the restrooms, he grazed shoulders with a man coming out of the men’s room, and the hair on the back of his neck quivered.

  Knots formed in his gut and he crashed into the ladies’ room.

  A woman washing her hands at the sink smirked. “Wrong place.”

  Quinn ignored her and peered under the first stall. Rikki hadn’t been wearing short boots.

  He pushed in the door of the next stall. “Rikki?”

  A groan from the third stall answered him and he gave the door a shove. The door just missed Rikki propped up against the stall, her face white and twisted with pain.

  “What happened? Where’s Belinda?”

  “Follow her. Just left. Get her.”

  “I’m not going anywhere. What the hell happened?”

  “I’m okay. I’ll be okay.” She pressed her purse into his hands, her own shaking. “Get the ipecac.”

  He dumped the contents of her purse on the tile floor and grabbed a small brown bottle. “This stuff?”

  She nodded. “Open.”

  He twisted off the cap and handed it to her. She placed it at her lips and threw some back. Almost immediately, she heaved.

  “Out.” She pushed him out of the stall.

  Another woman had come in and hovered by the first stall. “Is she okay?”

  The sound of vomiting came from Rikki’s stall, and Quinn shrugged. “She’s sick.”

  The woman wrinkled her nose. “Probably too many of those mint juleps.”

  Several minutes later, Rikki emerged from the stall, shoving her hair back from her face. She gave the woman at the sink a weak smile. “Sorry about that.”

  “Oh, honey, it was those mint juleps, wasn’t it? Bourbon, powdered sugar.” She stuck out her tongue. “Vile.”

  “You could say that.” Rikki ran water over her hands in the sink and splashed her face and rinsed her mouth.

  Quinn yanked several paper towels from the dispenser and handed them to her. “Feeling better?”

  “Lots.” She dabbed her face and neck with the paper towels and ducked back into the stall, ripping off a length of toilet paper. While she blew her nose and did another round of hand-washing, Quinn gathered the items from her purse off the floor and stuffed them back into her bag, including the bottle of ipecac. How the hell did she happen to have that? He studied the sharpened nail file, a bit of rope and another bottle of a clear substance before dropping each into her purse. Travel kit for a CIA agent on assignment?

  Two other women had come into the restroom and Quinn apologized, explaining that his wife had been ill, but the women’s presence didn’t give him and Rikki a chance to talk. And they needed to talk.

  Quinn took her arm and hunched over her as they exited the ladies’ room. He placed a hand on the silver bar of the back door. “Stay down, crouch forward, stay next to the building.”

  Rikki cleared her throat. “I don’t think we have to worry about anyone else. Belinda was lying about being followed. Besides, I’m supposed to be dead—again.”

  “Don’t argue.”

  Quinn sneaked Rikki out the back door of the restaurant as if they had a team of snipers taking aim from all four corners of the alley.

  He’d wedged his car behind a waitress’s after paying her forty bucks for the privilege to get as close as possible to the restaurant. When he handed Rikki into the passenger seat, he said, “Stay down.”

  She complied, arms folded over her stomach, and he hoped she wouldn’t have another episode in his car.

  Checking all mirrors, he pulled out of the alley and drove for several blocks.

  Rikki finally piped up. “We need to go after Belinda, Quinn.”

  “Can you tell me what happened now?”

  “She poisoned me, slipped it in my mint julep. As soon as I figured out what I was drinking, I stopped drinking it. I wiped my mouth several times and spit the drink into a napkin. One time, I was able to pour out a bit on the floor.”

  His hands gripped the steering wheel. And he’d been worried about shooters outside the restaurant. “So that and the syrup of ipecac saved you. How’d you know to bring it, or is it standard operating procedure for you spooks?”

  “Actually, David saved me.”

  “What?”

  “I’d never had a mint julep before, but this one tasted nothing like I expected. It had a tart taste and smell, and then I remembered David showing me a poison he’d discovered in Thailand. Fast-acting to incapacitate the victim, but slow enough to delay actual death for a few days. Belinda didn’t want me dropping dead at the table, but she also had no intention of giving me David’s picture or any other proof.”

  “Did she tell you this as she led you away to the bathroom?”

  “She didn’t say much of anything. She kept up appearances to the end, soothing me and sympathizing—up until the moment she abandoned me in the bathroom stall and took off.”

  “She admitted David was alive because she planned to kill you and never turn over any evidence. But why go through all this to kill you? Why not call out one of David’s henchmen, like she did at her house?”

  “That didn’t work because you were there.”

  “And why just you and not me? Unless she has something else planned for me.”

  “She probably does.”

  “But now I’m on my guard.”

  Rikki smacked the dashboard with both hands. “It’s time to strike. She thinks I’m dead and you’re running scared.”

  “This makes no sense to me, Rikki.” Quinn plowed a hand through his hair. “If she had called in one of David’s associates to take us out in the parking lot, or even if she never contacted us at all after the failed attempt at her house, both of those scenarios would compute better. Admitting David was alive? Luring you out to kill you with poison? I don’t get it.”

  She pressed her hands against her bubbling tummy. “We don’t have to get it. We just have to get her. She thinks I’m dead. Part of my stumbling and staggering with her was an act to convince her of that fact. She’s going to pass on the news of my demise to the men she has coming after us.”

  “I’m very much alive, and wouldn’t I be coming right at the woman who killed my partner?”

  “We’ll take her by surprise, at her house.”

  Quinn tugged on his ear. “You’re after the photo again. She’s probably destroyed it by now. Maybe it’s better if I set up a meeting with her. She knows I’m still alive.”

  “Then what? A meeting is not going to do any good if she doesn’t bring proof that David is alive.”

  “Instead of a meeting—” Quinn drummed his thumbs against the steering wheel as he made the last turn to their motel “—I’ll take her by surprise. I’ll escort her someplace where we can have a private...conversation. You stay out of sight until the interrogation. I want to get to the bottom of this. I want her to explain her actions.”

  “I want that picture.”

  “I know you do.” He rubbed her arm. “But we have to expect she destroyed it. Let’s get some answers from her first.”

  “Where are you going to catch her off guard?”

  Quinn parked the car and released his seat belt. “Despite her subterfuge on behalf of David, Belinda seems to go on with her life. We know she volunteers at the Savannah Historical Society in the mornings. I’ll catch her when she’s leaving her shift tomorrow morning. Just a friendly little talk.”

  “You don’t believe someone’s watching her?”

  “Why would they? She’s on David’s side. She proved that tonight by trying to poison you.” As that fact hit him all over again, he reached out to grab Rikki’s hand. “I think she has an associate or two of David’s close by that she can call out when she needs help, like setting us up
last night, but I don’t think they’re keeping tabs on her. I doubt there was anyone there tonight.”

  “Just her and her little vial of poison.” She pounded her knee with her fist. “I can’t believe I fell for the oldest trick in the book.”

  “You didn’t fall for it. You recognized the smell and taste of the poison and you took action. Your instincts are still good, kid.”

  She smiled at him before opening the door and slipping out of the car.

  When they got to the motel room, Quinn checked his laptop. “Hey, I got a message from Chan on the decoding.”

  Rikki leaned over him, her hair fluttering against his cheek. “Can he do it?”

  “He’s going to try. He has some programs he’s going to use.”

  “Fingers crossed.” And then she crossed them.

  He closed his hand around her crossed fingers and kissed the tips. “We’re going to solve this and get you back into action—where you belong.”

  Rikki’s eyes flooded with tears. “Back where I belong.”

  As one of those tears slid down Rikki’s cheek, Quinn kissed it away, tasting the salt on his lips.

  Were those tears for him? If she didn’t think she belonged with him by now, he’d have to up his game to convince her otherwise. And he’d start tonight.

  * * *

  THE NEXT MORNING, Quinn pulled on a pair of cargo shorts with big side pockets as he watched Rikki tuck her gun into a purse.

  “It’s times like these I wish I had a purse.” Quinn grabbed his own weapon and slipped it into a pocket of his shorts where it banged against his thigh. “I’d like to carry bigger, but I don’t want to be obvious.”

  Rikki held up her purse, swinging it from her fingertips. “I’d like to carry bigger, too, but I’m not going to lug around a suitcase.”

  “Remember—” he took her by the shoulders, his thumb nestling beneath the strap of her purse “—stay out of sight, even when I get her alone. She doesn’t need to know you’re still alive.”

  “Got it.”

  “Nobody knows Rikki Taylor is alive. There’s no reason for anyone to know April Thompson is alive, either, or Agent Reid, or whoever you were for Belinda’s friends.”

  He released her, and she adjusted the straps of her sundress. Then she crossed to the bed and swept up a big hat. “I’ll be wearing this for cover, too.”

  “Once I make contact with her and show her my gun, I’ll walk her to the park in the opposite direction of the coffeehouse where you’ll be waiting. Stay there until I text you or come and get you. I’ll only come and get you when I’m sure Belinda is on her way home and can’t see you.”

  “But if she still has the picture of David, you’ll be going back home with her to get it, right?”

  “I’m hoping for even better proof he’s alive, so don’t hold your breath on that picture.”

  “Just don’t drink anything she offers.”

  “Don’t worry about that.”

  They would be arriving to the area separately, so Quinn left first with the car. Rikki would be taking a taxi later. He didn’t want her anywhere near Belinda Dawson after what Belinda had tried last night, but trying to keep Rikki away would take more patience than he had. Also, he’d discovered that keeping Rikki away was not in his DNA.

  Quinn parked a few blocks away from the Savannah Historical Society and waited in his car for almost thirty minutes. They’d checked the volunteer shifts for that morning, and five minutes before he figured Belinda would be leaving, he walked to the block that housed the building and sat on a park bench facing the front entrance. She couldn’t exit to the rear, and if she came out a side door, she’d be forced to this street anyway. He had it all sussed out—but the best-laid plans had a way of taking a twist.

  He glanced casually to his right at the coffeehouse with its umbrellaed tables spilling onto the sidewalk, and his heart jumped when he spied a big white hat with a black-and-white polka-dot band around it—as long as she stayed out of sight.

  Quinn shifted his focus back to the building that housed the Historical Society and his eyes narrowed as he picked out Belinda skipping down the two steps, her arm tucked around the arm of another woman.

  Quinn shook his head. As far as Belinda knew, she’d poisoned a woman last night, and she looked like a sorority sister going to lunch.

  He held his breath as he watched the two women. He hadn’t planned on dealing with a second person.

  When the other woman peeled off in another direction, Quinn let out his breath and pushed himself up from the bench. Go time.

  Quinn ripped back the Velcro on his shorts’ pocket and gripped his gun inside—not that he planned to use it, but he wouldn’t mind putting a little fear into the woman who’d poisoned Rikki.

  Belinda kept her eyes glued to her phone as she strode down the sidewalk.

  Quinn moved behind her and quickened his pace. He lost the element of surprise as she swung her head around and then tripped to a stop.

  “You.”

  He slowed his gait as he continued to approach her, his hand curled around the gun in his pocket. “You killed my partner, and I wanna know why. I wanna know where your husband is.”

  Belinda’s eyes widened and she licked her lips, her gaze dropping to his pocket. “I-I...”

  A zipping sound ripped through the air. Belinda’s eyes bugged out of their sockets one second before she collapsed in front of him.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Rikki squinted through the small binoculars she cupped in the palm of her hand. As Belinda turned to confront Quinn, Rikki whispered, “Shoot. You gotta have more stealth than that, sailor.”

  Then Belinda’s body jerked, and she fell to the ground.

  With her heart pounding in her chest and a voice screaming in her head, Rikki jumped up from the table, knocking over her glass of water. Clutching her purse against her body, she ran across the street toward the Historical Society.

  Her vision blurred as she ran, and she could no longer see Quinn standing on the sidewalk. She panted and bumped into someone running from the scene.

  Someone shouted, “Active shooter.”

  Rikki jogged toward the downed figure and as she got close, a hand shot out from behind a tree and grabbed her.

  Quinn pulled her back behind the tree with him. “Someone shot her. He might still be active. I don’t think she’s dead.”

  “I need to talk to her.” She broke away from Quinn and dropped to the ground. Sirens wailed in the distance, and most people had hit the pavement or had taken cover behind trees.

  Rikki crawled toward Belinda, her hand stretched out and her fingers curled. She grabbed Belinda’s hand and scooted toward her, nose to nose.

  Quinn had followed her and crouched beside her, blocking her from the direction of the sniper.

  Blood seeped out from beneath Belinda’s body, but her eyes were open and she’d zeroed in on Rikki’s face. Her lips parted and she croaked.

  Rikki squeezed her hand. “I need to know where David is.”

  Belinda gasped and mumbled, and Rikki put her ear close to her lips.

  “Not telling you. Did you think I didn’t know you when I saw you? David’s beloved Rikki.”

  Rikki’s mouth fell open.

  “Wasn’t sure. Then you saw picture. You knew. ’Course you knew David’s body. You were his lover.”

  “That never happened. He turned on me. Set me up.” Rikki rushed her words as the sirens from the ambulance sounded louder.

  “Revenge, you broke it off. When I told him you were alive, it gave him...life.” Belinda’s lips twisted, whether in pain or bitterness, Rikki couldn’t tell.

  “So I wanted to take your life again. Away from him.”

  “Who did this to you? Where’s David now?”

  “Davey did it. You don’t c
ross David.”

  An EMT’s voice shouted above them. “Ma’am, ma’am. I need you to get out of the way now.”

  “Tell me. We’ll take him down together.” Rikki gripped Belinda’s wrist. “Where is he?”

  The EMT physically pulled Rikki away from Belinda, but not before she choked out one word. “Song.”

  Quinn took her arm, and his head swiveled back and forth like a weather vane in a hurricane. “You put yourself in extreme danger. Was it worth it?”

  “Her last word to me? Song. Buddy Song knows where David is. I’d say that’s worth it. The sniper was long gone anyway.”

  He cocked one eyebrow in her direction as he practically dragged her across the street. “Because you’re an expert on snipers?”

  “Well, he wasn’t a very good one, was he? He didn’t kill Belinda.”

  “Not yet.”

  “She seemed pretty lucid for someone on death’s doorstep. She could very well recover from this.”

  “Maybe that sniper didn’t want to kill her. Maybe he just wanted to interrupt her conversation with me or teach her a lesson about going rogue and murdering random CIA agents.”

  “Wasn’t he ready to murder random CIA agents the other night at Belinda’s house?”

  “We don’t know what his intentions were that night. He could’ve just wanted to trap and question, like I planned to do with Belinda.” He took her hand and led her into a small public parking lot. “I’m in here.”

  She ducked into the car and slumped in the seat. “At least we can now start with Buddy Song.”

  “We knew about him anyway, and Belinda could’ve been lying.” He cranked on the engine and squealed out of the parking lot. “What else was she telling you? That conversation lasted longer than one name.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Rikki slumped farther in the seat. “She knew who I was.”

  “What?” Quinn stomped on the brakes at the stop sign, and her body strained against the shoulder strap and then thumped back.

  “She made me.” Rikki twisted her fingers in her lap. “She suspected who I was when we first got to her house, and when I showed interest in the picture, that confirmed it for her.”