by Cindy Dees
“And you? How would you describe yourself?”
He shrugged. “I guess I came out somewhere in the middle. Maybe I tend toward being a jerk like my dad.”
She laid her hand on top of his. “Ashe, you most certainly take after your mother.”
He smiled sadly. “She was a fine woman.”
“And you loved her a lot.”
He shrugged. Slipped his hand out from under hers and moved back to the stove. “Mustn’t burn the pancakes,” he announced.
She studied him as he moved around the kitchen. The set of his shoulders was stiff. Tense. He was uncomfortable being back home. “How long has it been since you were here?”
He frowned. “Seven years, give or take. I came back for the funeral when my mom died.”
Whoa. “Didn’t your father die fairly recently?”
“Yeah. Last winter.”
“And you didn’t come home for his funeral.”
“I was downrange. Couldn’t get back.”
She didn’t buy that excuse for a minute. But it helped explain why he was so wired now. She let the subject drop and kept the conversation light throughout breakfast. The bracing meal helped her feel like her old self, and she insisted on helping with the dishes. She dried while Ashe put the dishes away. They were just finishing up when she asked casually, “Do you need to go through your father’s personal possessions while we’re here? I could help if you’d like.”
He glanced at her, bleak emptiness yawning in his eyes. “I’ve got no use for any of his stuff.”
“Look, Ashe. We’re not all blessed with perfect parents. And sometimes they do a crappy job of raising us. But I have to say, your father must have done something right because you turned out fantastic. Whether it was because of him or in spite of him, I don’t particularly care. I only know I approve of the end result.”
Ashe stared at her hard for a long time, and she let him. She knew all too well how hard it was to forgive parents for their sins.
He spun away, gripping the edge of the counter until his knuckles turned white.
“Are you sure you won’t ever want anything to remember your parents by?” she asked gently. “What if you have kids someday? They’ll want to know who their grandparents were. You should at least keep some pictures and hang on to a few keepsakes.”
Ashe’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t utter a word. He merely put away the last skillet and banged the cupboard door shut. Then he disappeared from the kitchen.
She didn’t follow.
Sighing with frustration, Hank shoved a hand through her hair. Granted, she might not have been close to her father, but at least she hadn’t engaged in open warfare with the man.
A little while later she wandered out into the living area, but there was no sign of Ashe. Curious, she moved down the hallway into the bedroom she’d woken up in. It had to have been his parents’ room. She poked around and found a sturdy suitcase and laid it open on the bed. Carefully she wrapped the photographs from the walls in shirts from his father’s drawers and laid them in the suitcase. She opened the desk and went through the drawers one by one.
Into the suitcase went his father’s wallet. Military discharge papers. Marriage license. Ashe’s birth certificate. More pictures—some of Ashe as a boy, others of a man who looked a lot like Ashe in what looked like Vietnam, some of a beautiful, laughing young woman who must have been Ashe’s mother. A stack of citation certificates that went with military medals: service medals, four Purple Hearts, and a half dozen medals for valor awarded to Ashe’s father, Walter.
And then she hit the mother lode. In the bottom drawer of the desk lay a scrapbook. It was stuffed full of memorabilia from Ashe’s life. The mementos and pages devoted to his childhood were written in a feminine hand. But as Ashe’s military career commenced, the handwriting changed. Walter had maintained this scrapbook when his wife passed away.
The last entry was less than a year ago, a newspaper clipping about the heroic rescue of a pair of aid workers from a foreign war zone. Ashe wasn’t named in the article, but Walter had obviously known his son had been part of the mission.
She closed the scrapbook gently, stroking the leather cover lightly. She could feel the love that had gone into making this. The love the couple had had for their only child.
Should she show it to Ashe? It was doubtful that he would appreciate it. Not yet, but maybe someday. Although she’d been upset with him earlier, she understood his anger toward his father and had to respect his right to feel that way. Only time could heal the wounds of the past, and instinct told her that Ashe’s father was too newly gone for him to be ready to see this book.
Her own father had thrown expensive gifts and money at her over the years by way of apology for his lack of attention, and none of it had helped her feel more charitably toward him, either.
She tucked the scrapbook carefully in the suitcase with his mother’s jewelry and the other bits and pieces of his parents’ lives. It seemed sad to her that their whole lives had come down to a single suitcase. At least her parents had left behind a magnificent collection of art and antiques for her and her brother. Each piece had been lovingly found and repaired if necessary. Her mother had been brilliant at restoring the distressed paintings her father had brought home over the years. Every time Hank looked at one of the paintings, she saw her father’s taste and her mother’s loving hands.
All Ashe had was the scrapbook. She would see to it the thing was kept safe until he was ready to really see the love collected in its pages. She closed the suitcase and carried it to the kitchen. Over the next several hours, she went through the house in search of valuable and unique objects that were worth preserving for posterity.
Eventually, Ashe asked her impatiently, “Do I want to know what you’re doing?”
“I grew up in a house full of antique dealers. I’m collecting all the decent pieces for you to hang on to for later. I know you don’t want any of this stuff now, but later you’ll thank me for saving something for you.”
He just rolled his eyes.
“Help me carry this stuff out to the van.”
He stood up, frowning. “And what am I supposed to do with it after that?”
“You can put it in the storage unit with my mother’s stuff. I just don’t want this place getting robbed or a hurricane hitting it when you’re not here to protect it from harm.”
“It’s just a house, Hank. And some stuff. I already told you I don’t want any of it.”
She stepped close to him and laid her palm gently on his cheek. “Just trust me on this one, okay? I lost both of my parents, too. And someday, you’re going to wish you’d kept a small piece of them.”
He turned away sharply, cursing. Then he snapped over his shoulder, “Fine. What goes out to the van?”
He carried out the suitcase and a laundry basket full of old sterling silver pieces. She packed his mother’s collection of porcelain dolls and his father’s service uniform in a small trunk that went out to the van, too.
Hank was just eyeing the small hutch in the dining room and pondering whether or not she dared suggest that he keep the antique piece when the living room window cracked. She flinched, badly startled.
A fast-moving large object crashed into her from behind and she slammed onto the floor. If the breath hadn’t have been completely knocked out of her, she would have screamed. But as it was, she lay silent, crushed beneath Ashe’s large body, too shocked to struggle.
“Don’t get up, Hank. Stay on your belly and start crawling toward the bedrooms.”
“What’s happening?”
“Someone’s shooting at us.”
“The sniper from last night?” she gasped.
“Not a chance he’s out of FBI custody yet. Nope. We kicked a hornet’s nest yesterday. Vitaly or his guy must have planted a tracker on you. I burned your clothes, but I must have missed it.” He added tersely, “Start crawling.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Shoot back and kill this bastard.”
Terrified, she crept away from Ashe. She hated not being plastered to his side. But she would only get in his way if it turned into a shoot-out.
Why hadn’t he told her to head for the kitchen? He must be worried that a bad guy would come in the back door. If the house was surrounded, they were in big trouble. She pulled out her cell phone and pushed along with her feet and free hand as it rang.
“Bastien,” she whispered, “Someone’s shooting at us. We need help.”
“Where are you?” the cop asked quickly.
“Ashe’s folks’ house. I don’t know the address.”
“I do. Tell him to hold on for five minutes. And keep your head down, Hank.”
She relayed Bastien’s message just as the dining room window exploded in a shower of flying glass. Ashe popped up from behind the sofa and fired a pistol through the front window. The sound of the shot was deafening and spurred her to hurry down the hallway, away from the unfolding madness.
She’d seen a big metal box in his father’s bedroom closet that looked like an ammo container. On the off-chance that she was right, she headed for it once she reached the bedroom—and took the opportunity to hide in the closet while she was at it.
She fumbled at the latch in the dark and lifted out a layer of foam. Her fingers encountered steel. Exploring the shape, she recognized a revolver. Gratefully she pulled it out and kept exploring the box’s contents. A pistol and several boxes of ammunition later, she backed out of the closet.
“Ashe! I found your father’s guns and ammo. Do you need them?”
“Stay put. I’ll come to you,” he called back.
A flurry of gunshots from outside announced that his movement was drawing fire from whoever was surrounding the house. Ashe dived through the door and hit the floor beside her.
“We’ll head for the bathroom. All the tile and ceramic in there will protect us a little extra. Then we’ll sit tight until the police get here—”
“What’s that smell?” she interrupted. A strong odor of gasoline abruptly hung in the air.
“Sonofabitch,” Ashe muttered. “They’re gonna burn us out.”
“Who is?”
“Doesn’t matter right now. Survive first. Identify attackers later.”
“Now what?” she asked in mounting panic. The bad guys were going to set the house on fire? This was an old home. No doubt all-wood construction. It would go up like a tinder box. “How soon until the police get here?”
“It won’t matter. The bad guys will back off. Get out of sight. Cops won’t enter the house with it on fire. They’ll wait for the fire department to get here. And in the meantime, you and I will be smoked out or forced out by the heat. And when we show ourselves, the shooters will pick us off.”
She thought fast, purely an act of self-defense against the panic clawing at her belly. “They’ve had to move in close to douse the house in gas and light it on fire, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Then they’re having to back off. If they’re doing that now, this is our window of opportunity to get out. While their backs are turned and they’re not looking. They won’t expect us to make a break for it yet, will they?”
“It’s risky,” he warned her.
“It’s better than getting cooked. Or shot.”
“Okay. Let’s go.” He talked as he rapidly jammed a clip into a handgun and chambered a round. “Van’s out back. You take the pistol. It’s the smallest weapon. If you see anything move, shoot at it. You don’t have to hit it. We just want to make the bastards duck for cover.”
She nodded and took the weapon he handed her. “Safety’s off,” he muttered. “Point and shoot. And hang on. It’ll jump hard in your hand.”
She didn’t bother to tell him that she knew exactly what it would feel like. Spying a couple of extra clips she pocketed those, as well. He loaded the pair of revolvers quickly and nodded to her. “Ready? Stay on my heels. I’ll be moving fast.”
“Got it.”
He opened the bedroom door and raced down the hallway to the kitchen. He was not lying. She had to run hard to keep up with him. He didn’t even pause when he hit the back door. He just barged through the screen door, tearing it off the frame as he went. A gun in each hand, he burst outside. He fired left and right simultaneously.
The sound was painful, it was so loud. Something moved behind the tree in the backyard and she fired at it, double-tapping the trigger from a shoulder-height stance. A man crumpled to the ground beyond a big oak tree.
Ashe dived into the back of the van, and she dived in right behind him. While she rolled to her belly and turned to face the back door, he scrambled for the driver’s seat. From the floor, he turned on the ignition and used his hand to push the accelerator.
The vehicle leaped forward. It careened to one side in a sharp turn, and she slammed into the side of the van. The back door swung open and a man came into view, a rifle poised at his shoulder. She fired and the man’s rifle spun to one side. Whether or not she’d hit him or he’d just ducked, she had no idea.
The van picked up speed down the driveway. It bumped over the curb and swerved into the street. A flurry of gunshots pierced the side of the van over her head, and she plastered herself flat against the floor. The van engine revved as it raced away from the house. A third armed man came into view, stepping out from behind a parked car, and she was ready for him. She sent three rounds at the guy in quick succession. He went down as if she’d hit him in the leg.
And then they were turning violently again, and Ashe’s home disappeared from sight. She ejected her clip, which couldn’t have had more than a couple of rounds left in it, and slammed in another clip. All the while, she watched alertly out the back for any sign of pursuit.
After a couple of minutes, Ashe pulled the van over to the curb, and she closed the back door and crawled into the passenger seat beside him. But she kept the pistol handy in her lap.
“Jeez, Hank. Are you okay?” Ashe bit out.
“Yes. You?”
“Fine. You’re not hurt, are you?”
“No, Ashe. I’m fine. I swear.”
“Thank God,” he breathed. He reached over to squeeze her hand tightly for a moment, but then he pulled away from the curb and into traffic once more.
They drove in silence after that until they merged onto the highway.
Then Ashe looked over at her grimly. “Care to tell me how you know how to handle a firearm like that?”
She shrugged. “My dad showed me and my brother when we were kids.”
“Was your dad military, by any chance?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“And he taught you kids how to prone fire and double-tap when you aim at a human?”
She shrugged, not fond of this line of questioning. It skirted too close to family secrets she’d been warned never to share. “Where are we going?”
“Naval Air Station New Orleans. I’m done having you attacked and shot at. I’m stashing you on a military installation, where I know Vitaly and his buddies can’t get at you.”
That sounded just fine with her. The van stopped at a guard shack, and Ashe passed an ID card out the window. The guard looked at it and saluted Ashe smartly as he passed the card back.
He drove to a nondescript pink brick building and ushered her inside. A bunch of men in uniforms stared back at her while she stared at them. “Why are they all looking at me?” she whispered to Ashe.
He grinned lopsidedly. “They don’t see many civilian women, and rarely as hot as you, and never with me.”
Her gaze swung to him. “Don’t you like girls?” she blurted.
The roomful of men erupted in laughter, startling her more than a little.
“Who’ve you got there, Hollywood?” A handsome blond man with icy blue eyes stepped forward.
“Sir, this is Hank Smith. Hank, this is Commander Cole Perriman. My boss.”
“I’m so sorry,” Han
k said gravely to the naval officer.
He smiled warmly at her. “I like her.”
Ashe asked cautiously, “What brings you to New Orleans, sir?”
“You brought me to New Orleans,” Perriman answered tartly. “What’s going on?”
“Someone just tried to burn us out of my home and gun us down. The van outside should have some rounds lodged in it for forensic purposes.”
At a glance from Ashe’s boss, a guy near the door opened his desk and pulled out a box about the size of a fishing kit. Guy and kit disappeared out the front door.
“Come with me,” Perriman replied tersely.
Ashe rolled his eyes at Hank behind his boss’s back, and everyone else in the room rolled their eyes at Ashe. Worried all of a sudden, she let Ashe lead her into a conference room and close the door.
The commander waited until Ashe seated her politely in a chair at the long table, then turned on him sharply. “Start talking, Hollywood. What the hell have you gotten yourself into?”
If a sense of foreboding had been hanging over Hank’s head since she met Ashe, it now blossomed into a thundercloud of impending doom.
Chapter 15
Ashe had given enough mission debriefs over the years to get through this one quickly and smoothly. But he couldn’t shake a sinking feeling that Perriman knew more about the Who Do Voodoo than he was letting on. Frosty sat mostly silent through the debriefing, listening to Ashe but watching Hank.
Why was his boss so interested in her? Sure, she was beautiful enough that it was hard for a guy to take his gaze off her. But Perriman was staring at her like he’d love to crawl inside her head and uncover her secrets.
His boss could get in line on that one. This was the first time since the shoot-out at his folks’ house that he’d slowed down long enough to process what he’d seen. Where did she learn how to fire a pistol like that? To reload so quickly and efficiently, like she’d handled a lot of weapons before? Why hadn’t she completely panicked when the firefight broke out?
That kind of skill with weapons came from years of handling them. Had her father been her teacher? Or maybe her brother. Either way, the questions about her past continued to stack up.