Protective Measures

by Dana Marton

  She leaned out as far as she could. “Help!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. “I need help!”

  Why wasn’t anyone coming?

  Normally, she would have either Harrison or Green. Whichever man was on duty usually spent some time sitting in the car out front, making his rounds around the house every half hour. Tonight she had both agents—she’d seen them from her bedroom window before she’d gone to bed. The night was warm. They would have the car window down. Would they hear her? Or were they talking, distracting each other?

  The door shuddered behind her again and again. She needed a weapon. What? She had nothing remotely usable in the bathroom. She pushed into her walk-in closet. There. If she could rip the clothes bar out of the wall… She yanked off everything, dropping suits by the armload on the floor, and grabbed the bar, braced one foot on the wall. The braces didn’t even budge.

  Pop. Pop. The man outside the door was shooting at the lock. She didn’t have long.

  “Dear Lord, help me.” She glanced up as she pulled harder, desperate, and saw the small panel in the ceiling. The attic. No dropdown stairs, unfortunately. They’d never used the place for anything.

  Kaye ran back and grabbed the chair. The lock was still holding the door but just barely.

  “My security is coming. Go away!”

  She rushed to the closet. From the chair she pushed the panel open, pulled herself up—no light up there, no electricity at all, she would have to manage in the dark.

  She looked down at the chair. Couldn’t leave that. It would negate any advantage she had gained by coming up here. She hooked her knees over the ledge and dropped her body down. If she had a moment to think things over, she would have never done it. As it was, she had to act on the first idea that popped into her head, no time to look for a saner one. She stretched out all the way, her arms hanging low, her fingers brushing the chair’s back.

  God, was she really doing this? She had no coordination. Zip. Zero. People only did things like this in the movies. Even there, they used body doubles.

  She wiggled. Another inch and she would have the chair. Either that or she would fall and break her neck. She stretched and got a firm grip, pulled herself up with the chair and set it aside. Apparently, desperation gave you wings. She’d barely rolled away from the hole when the bathroom door burst open.

  She scampered blindly into the darkness, tripping on beams. The attic went on forever. Then her head smacked against something. The roof sloped. She reached the end and crawled into the corner, felt around and came across the brick chimneystack, squeezed in beside it.

  Where on earth were Harrison and Green? What time was it? Had DuCharme ever made it back?

  She could see nothing but the shaft of light coming up from below, the only sounds her own breathing and the thumping as the man jumped again and again to reach the opening. And then he did, blocking the light for a moment.

  He came up, stood still for a few seconds, looking around.

  “You shouldn’t have run,” he said. “You shouldn’t have run.”

  She was in the shadow of the chimney, the darkest spot in the dark attic. Could he see her? Panic rose, her breath coming in ragged gasps. Could he hear that? She could hear him move around as he hunted her, the rustling of the insulation, the small bumping sounds when his shoes met a beam.

  She wanted to ask who he was, why he wanted to hurt her. She kept her mouth shut, knowing he was unlikely to answer. All she would accomplish by talking would be giving away her location.

  She waited, willing her breathing to slow, ignoring limbs that were going numb from the lack of movement. The hot attic made her sweat, fiberglass insulation sticking to her naked arms, pricking them. She itched all over, but didn’t dare as much as flex a finger to scratch.

  How long could she hide up here? Had anyone heard her cry for help?

  He stopped some twenty feet to the right, facing away from her. What was he doing? Probably listening. He hadn’t seen her yet.

  “You climbed too high,” he said. “Somebody has to take you down. It ain’t right, that’s all. You’ve gotta be reasonable and admit it ain’t right.”

  Was he insane?

  If she could somehow get around him and get to the door… No. The second she moved, he would get her. He still had the gun. He was moving again, coming her way.

  She needed a weapon of her own.

  Nothing up here, but the two of them. And the hairspray stuck in the elastic of her pajama bottom.

  She waited in silence.

  He moved slowly, listening, checking every nook. He was getting closer and closer. She could hear him breathing, which meant he was close enough to hear her. She opened her lips to breathe through her mouth. Slow breath in, slow breath out.

  They barely had six feet between them.

  Then his head turned suddenly, and she could swear he was looking right at her in the darkness.

  “There you are,” he said, and stepped closer.

  She gripped the can, flexed her muscles, getting ready to jump. And when he was close enough, she lunged from her hiding spot, going for the gun with her right hand while spraying his face with the hairspray in the left.

  Chapter Three

  He knew something was wrong as soon as he pushed through the neighbor’s bushes and spotted Harrison draped over the steering wheel. SDDU jokes about the Secret Service aside, no way would Harrison be sleeping.

  Danny ran the rest of the way to the Lincoln, saw the blood on the man’s temple. He reached in through the driver’s-side window and checked the pulse—faint but steady.

  He flipped open his phone as he dashed for the house.

  “Daniel DuCharme. Officer down. Requesting backup and a bus,” he said, using the standard law-enforcement jargon for an ambulance, and gave the address.

  The front door was locked from the inside. He went to the back, gun in hand.

  A quick scan of the property showed it empty. Where was Green? Oh, hell. He spotted the man sprawled behind the large air conditioner unit. Danny crouched and felt for sign of life. None. Green hadn’t been as lucky as Harrison.

  Waiting for backup never even crossed his mind.

  The back door opened silently under the pressure of his hand. He stepped into the kitchen and stilled for a moment, listening. The house stood silent, lights still on in the kitchen and hallway, same as he’d left it. No sign of struggle.

  “Congresswoman?”

  All his senses were on alert as he moved from room to room then up the stairs. He hadn’t thought he was going to find Kaye Miller sleeping peacefully, but when he finally made his way into the bedroom, the sight of the empty bed was like a fist in the stomach.

  She’d either been taken or there was a body somewhere else in the house. He hadn’t seen the basement and the garage yet.

  He had lost her, damn it. He had lost her within hours of taking on the assignment. He sure as hell didn’t want to be giving that news to the Colonel. And the cold feeling that spread in his stomach went deeper than professional frustration.

  Fury came in waves. He was mad at whoever had gotten in here and at himself, too, at least as much. He shouldn’t have left. He kicked at the bullet casings on the floor. No blood anywhere. That didn’t mean she was alive, just that they hadn’t killed her here. Still, as long as he hadn’t found the body there was always some hope.

  Something thumped above, and he jerked up his head. What was that? Then it came again, the sounds of struggle. The attic. He knew just where the door panel was, had noted it on his first run-through of the house.

  A jumble of clothes covered the closet floor. He trampled them without thought as he jumped for the edge of the opening in the ceiling. He pulled himself up and, flipping on the flashlight he’d carried on his belt, saw the two figures rolling on the floor in the far corner and ran for them.

  “Stop! Hands up! Kaye?”

  They went on as if they hadn’t even heard him.

  He couldn’t
shoot. They were too close together.

  He dropped the flashlight so he could grab for the man. The guy’s head came up suddenly and smacked into his right elbow, making him drop the gun. He caught it with his left hand on reflex, shoved the man away from Kaye with the other hand and shot. The attacker was moving now, fast, tumbling away from them in the darkness.

  “Kaye?” Why wasn’t she talking? She had to be alive. He’d seen her move just a few seconds ago.

  He glanced back at her as he rushed after the man. She wasn’t getting up.

  “Kaye?” He slowed, even though fighting instinct pushed him to go after his opponent, put him down until the man could no longer come up.

  He squeezed off another shot at the silhouette that darted across the dark attic, then turned around and went back to Kaye. He picked up the flashlight and got the beam on her in time to see her sit up.

  She was okay. He caught his breath. She was okay.

  “I’m a little dizzy.” Her voice sounded hoarse, her hands coming up to rub her neck.

  “Are you injured, Congresswoman?” He kept his back to her, shielding her with his body, his head half turned so he could keep an eye both on her and on anyone who might come at them.

  She reached for his arm. “Somebody was in here. He was choking me.”

  “I know.” He panned the attic with the flashlight but it was empty save for the two of them.

  “He had a gun. It’s here somewhere.” She glanced around frantically. “I knocked it from him, but then I couldn’t find it.”

  “You disarmed your attacker?” That would explain why the guy wasn’t shooting back.

  He turned the flashlight at the floor and found the weapon hiding in the pink insulation. A Beretta with a silencer. He left it there for the crime scene team, not wanting to taint evidence. “Can you make it down from here?”

  She was already standing and moving toward the light that came from below.

  “Me first.” He jumped down. “Okay.” He braced his stance and caught her, then set her on her feet.

  She wore silk pajama shorts with a slinky matching top. But far from enjoying the view, it filled him with hot anger. Her left shoulder was covered in old greening bruises, her neck and arms red with fresh abrasions, finger marks where the attacker had grabbed her.

  “I should have been here.” What the hell had he been thinking? He’d made the mistake of underestimating the situation and overestimating the men who had guarded her. And his mistakes had nearly cost her her life.

  She didn’t respond—probably too shaken.

  When she reached for the light switch, he put a hand on hers to stop her. “Let’s not give anyone a target,” he said. “In case there’s someone out there.”

  Her hand trembled in his.

  “Come on.” He pulled her forward. “You need to sit down.”

  He led her to the bedroom with his gun raised, walking in front of her. The room was empty. He was pretty sure the rest of the house was too by now. Unless the attacker was exceedingly stupid, he would have taken the fastest way out.

  She sank onto the mattress, and he grabbed her robe from the chest at the foot of the bed then wrapped her in it. “Are you okay?”

  “Are you going after him?”

  He wanted to. More than anything, he wanted to catch the bastard and pummel him a little before he slapped the cuffs on. But leaving her wasn’t a good idea. Not until backup got here, by which time, of course, it would be too late. “I’m staying with you.”

  She just about sagged against him.

  “Thank you. And thank you for coming back in time.”

  He said nothing, not happy with his performance. He hadn’t expected a second attack, and certainly not this soon.

  She shivered next to him. The night was balmy, but the shock of the attack was probably getting to her. He picked up a light blanket that lay discarded on the floor and slipped it around her shoulders, spotted a small picture on the floor and picked it up. He rubbed his thumb over the bullet hole in the frame. The photograph looked old, showing two young, uniformed black men.

  “Your family?”

  “My grandfather.” She pointed to the man on the right. “And this one is Cal’s father.” She took the picture from him and set it on the dresser. “They were Tuskegee Airmen together.”

  “No kidding? Is that how you and the Colonel know each other?”

  “Cal is my godfather.”

  His body was alert, his mind one-hundred-percent focused on the sounds of the house, on guard against any possible attack. But in a separate compartment somewhere inside him, something relaxed and opened.

  “The Colonel is a good man,” he said.

  “Yes, he is.” She clutched the blanket together in front of her, but the dark shadows of her bruises were still visible on her neck.

  “Would you like some ice for that?” He pointed.

  “It’s not that bad.”

  It was. “When the paramedics get here, we’ll have them take a look at it.”

  “Where is everybody? Where are Mr. Green and Mr. Harrison?” She looked up abruptly as if just now remembering.

  “Harrison is injured. Green didn’t make it. I called for help when I got here. They should be here soon,” he said.

  She turned toward him, her eyes round in the darkness, her lips trembling. “What do you mean didn’t make it? What happened to Mr. Green?”

  “Shot.”

  “Dead?”

  She braced her elbows on her knees and buried her face in her hands, her hair falling forward. She didn’t say anything.

  He wanted to put his arms around her, but it seemed wildly inappropriate. And it probably wouldn’t be adequate either. A man had given his life for her. He knew what that felt like and remembered the teammates he had lost over the years. She would need time to deal with the idea.

  “He was doing his job. We all know what we’re in for when we sign up for an assignment,” he said, knowing he could take away neither her guilt nor her grief.

  “Where is Mr. Harrison? Can we help him?”

  “He’s in the car.”

  She got up and went to the window. He pulled her back. “You can’t leave the house, and I’m not leaving you. From what I could tell he just got knocked out.”

  He pushed her onto the bed gently and decided to do the only thing he could and try to distract her.

  “Did you recognize anything about the man who attacked you? Body? Voice?”

  She shook her head. “I was barely awake at first. Then we were up in the attic and it was too dark to see. The voice didn’t sound familiar.”

  “As soon as the police get here I’ll have them dust for prints.”

  “I want to know who he was and why he is doing this to me.” Anger stole into her voice. “What did Mr. Green die for? I want to know.” The last word was said on a restrained sob.

  “You will.” He would see to it.

  She was not leaving his sight again until the attacker was dead or in custody.

  “WHY ARE we coming down here?” Kaye picked her steps with care on the steep staircase. “I don’t think we should—”

  “The house is crawling with Secret Service and D.C. cops. It’s a good spot to be out of the way.”

  Daniel DuCharme flipped on the light, and she stepped off the last step after a moment of hesitation. She hadn’t been down here in ages. Both the workshop half and the gym portion of the single large room looked eerie, like a forgotten kingdom of dreams.

  There had been a time when she’d hated to come down because the memories the place brought were too painful. The basement had been Ian’s domain. It took more than a year, before she could look at his things without crying.

  Now the place was just a room.

  Her new bodyguard checked out the exercise equipment. She never used it, didn’t have the time. The stack of weights gleamed on the carpet. Her housekeeper kept everything dusted and vacuumed. She was a gem. Kaye pushed in one of the hand
weights to bring it in line with the rest.

  He was watching her. She could see him from the corner of her eyes. She adjusted another weight and nearly knocked it off the rack. He was making her nervous. Ridiculous.

  She turned to him. “Did you have more questions for me?” Better to face him than start acting like a jittery idiot.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I was staring.”

  Something had changed since last night, something she couldn’t put her finger on. There was another layer to what passed between them. What? What was different? Did he still feel guilty for leaving her?

  He could join the club. Guilt was eating at her over Green and Harrison.

  She watched Danny. Last night his mood had been as dark as the attic where she’d fought for her life. Not now, although she could still see some of the tension in him. But it seemed he had compartmentalized the events of the night so he could go on with his work. She’d do well to follow his example.

  He bent his head then looked up with those breathtaking eyes. “You know, you’re the most famous person I’ve ever guarded. I’ve seen you on TV a million times.” His lips stretched into a semblance of a smile.

  He’d watched her on TV. A lot of people did. No reason the thought should fluster her.

  What was it with them this morning? Maybe the danger they had shared the night before had brought them closer. Maybe it was that he was the only person in the house she knew. All the agents upstairs were new to her case.

  “Do you do this often? Work as a bodyguard, I mean.” She could have written the book on sounding and appearing composed and dignified. She could handle him.

  “Most of my assignments don’t involve protection.”

  What did they involve? Surveillance? Infiltration? Espionage? She didn’t ask. Knowing that he worked for Cal gave her a fair idea.

  “Nice setup,” he said just before the silence became uncomfortable, nodding at the universal gym next to him.