by Rachel Rust
Thatcher motioned to two agents on the other side of her. They hurried inside, guns raised. A few minutes later they walked out with a stumbling Toby. He once again had duct-taped wrists.
“Bullshit!” I screamed as the FBI agents helped him out of his tape restraints. “He’s in on it! Toby is in on it!”
“The girl is delusional,” Sergei said. “Too much sun makes the mind see crazy things.”
“Agents Cooper and Bauer, stay with him,” Thatcher said to the two agents who had gone in after Toby. They sat Toby alongside the edge of the building, keeping a watch on him.
Thatcher glanced back at me. “Why do you say Agent McCoy is in on it?”
“Because he is! He was working with them. He’s the reason Sergei was able to find us at the hotel! They’ve known all along that I was in that hotel suite. They even knew who I was at the gala. They were probably just waiting for the right time to come grab me—during the sweep when Han left, leaving Eddie all alone, knowing he couldn’t stop all the men by himself.”
Thatcher and Eddie both looked over at Toby.
Sergei laughed. “Oh dear girl, you do have your facts confused. Although”—he placed a hand over his heart in fake sincerity—“I do admit not everything she says is wrong.”
“Such as?” Thatcher asked.
Sergei began pacing in front of the warehouse door. Thatcher ordered him to stop moving, but he didn’t listen. Back and forth his feet went.
“We knew you would find where we had taken the girl. Broad daylight, at the mall. It was not a stealth maneuver—on purpose. And we knew the FBI would follow us across state lines into Wyoming, and we were not surprised to see Agent Kim arrive as our buyer. We followed you to the airport, then back to Rapid City when you thought you had been so smart to send Agent Baker down to Denver as a decoy.” He stopped pacing, facing Thatcher. “We have known where Miss Mancini was the entire time. Suite 801, eating eggs and toast and BLT sandwiches. In fact, who do you think made those foods for her? I have many eyes and ears—and cooks.”
I grimaced. His people had cooked my food? Ick. What if they had messed with it? Spit into it or … worse. My stomach roiled. At least they didn’t poison me.
Sergei gave me a sickly sweet grin. “She really did look lovely at the gala, and it was nice that she was allowed one night out of that hotel room where you had her stuffed away night and day.”
I glared at him, which made him chuckle.
Thatcher and Eddie exchanged a long glance between them, jaws tight. Clearly pissed off and confused that Sergei had been one step ahead of them the entire time. The FBI had been duped at their own game.
“And I don’t supposed you’ll enlighten us as to how you knew about her?” Thatcher asked.
“Toby!” I yelled. “It was Toby! He’s—”
“Don’t listen to her,” Toby yelled back. “She slept with Eddie, her allegiance is compromised.”
My head reared back. My allegiance? What the hell did that mean? I would’ve thought sleeping with an FBI agent would pretty much cement my allegiance to the FBI.
“What are you talking about, McCoy?” Thatcher asked Toby.
“I think I can answer that for him,” Sergei interjected. “You see, I couldn’t know all these things on my own … which agents were on the task force, where the FBI was going, who you were talking to, where you were taking the girl. I needed help.” He smiled. “And I found it.”
Sergei looked directly at Eddie.
“Special Agent Martinez has proven a viable associate,” Sergei said.
“What’s he talking about, Martinez?” Thatcher asked Eddie.
Eddie shook his head. “He’s talking bullshit.”
“It’s true,” Toby said. “Eddie’s been in contact with Sergei the whole time. I should’ve seen it, but I didn’t. I’m sorry, Agent Thatcher.”
“Bullshit!” Eddie roared.
“Ask him how he found us here,” Toby said. “How did he know to come to this warehouse?”
“Don’t listen to Toby,” I shouted. “He’s lying and trying to confuse you!”
Thatcher ignored me and looked over at Eddie. “Martinez? How did you know this address?”
Eddie nodded to Brandon, still on the ground, holding his blown-out knee. “After they took Natalie and Toby from the hotel room, he gave me the address.”
“I didn’t tell him the location,” Brandon said. “He already knew because he’s one of us.”
“Goddamnit!” Eddie shouted, pointing his gun at Brandon now. “You fucking told me this address. Tell them that you told me!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Brandon said, barely able to speak through whatever awful pain came from having a kneecap blown to smithereens.
“Tell them!” Eddie shouted, his face red.
“Martinez,” Thatcher said. “Lower your gun.”
“What?”
“I said lower your gun, Agent Martinez.” Thatcher’s voice had turned grave. She motioned to another agent behind Eddie who stepped to the side and took Eddie’s gun from him. Eddie then unstrapped the smaller gun from his ankle and handed it over as well. Three agents stepped up beside him, and I couldn’t tell if they were shielding his now-defenseless body, or keeping him from getting away. Maybe both.
Sergei smiled, with his hands still in the air. He began pacing again. “Now you must be wondering why Eddie brought all of you out here to me, right? Certainly not to exchange the girl. No, no, I will be keeping her for reasons that are my own. Eddie may have worked his way into her panties, but it was not love, it was my idea. Sometimes we have to test the merchandise for our clients.”
I looked at Eddie, and he gave me a pained look, shaking his head at Sergei’s words. No way had he slept with me under order of Sergei. It was Toby, not him who was doing Sergei’s bidding. And there were only two of us in that bedroom that night, and everything we had felt was real. Was it love? I didn’t know, but it was certainly something genuine. I gave Eddie a nod to let him know that I was still on his side. I believed him. I would stand by him … if only I could get the damn zip-ties around my wrists undone.
“I can tell you why we’re here,” Thatcher said to Sergei. “We’re here for you, Romanov.”
Sergei laughed. “No, you are here because I wanted you to be here.”
“Down on your knees, Sergei. Hands on top of your head.” Thatcher smiled a bit saying those words, looking all too confident, as though Sergei didn’t have any more power in that moment.
But I was leery. Sergei had tons of power, and I was beginning to wonder when that power would make a comeback. Because from everything I had heard about Sergei Romanov, he was not going to give up this easily. He was not going to go down in a construction equipment lot under the siege of only two dozen law enforcement members.
Sergei smiled at Thatcher and began taking long steps backward, back toward the warehouse.
“Stop!” Thatcher ordered.
But Sergei continued to back up. He looked at Eddie. “Thanks for everything, kid. Now if I were you, I would run.”
Confused glances were exchanged, and then Eddie looked to me with a sheen of terror across his face.
“Get down!” he yelled to me, but his voice was lost in the sound of gunfire. Loud machine-gun fire, raining down from the roof of the warehouse.
It suddenly became clear why Sergei had led the FBI—the specific task force charged with bringing him down—to that warehouse: It was an ambush.
Chapter Twenty-Four
I ducked down against the metal of the front loader, its body keeping me safe from the hail of roof bullets. I squished myself against the machinery as tight as I could, pressing my upper arms against my ears to keep the endless gunfire from popping an eardrum. Thatcher and another agent jumped into the space next to me. Return fire seemed futile against the nonstop bullets.
Thatcher and the other agent yelled some things at one another and motioned as best they could to others
who presumably were hidden behind some of the other peripheral machinery. I could only hope Eddie was one of those people—that he was safe, behind yellow construction metal, and not lying in a pool of blood on the concrete. The speed and intensity at which the gunfire had started had allowed for little time to seek cover.
With my face pressed against metal, I squished my eyes closed and hummed. I couldn’t hear my hums, but the constant buzzing vibration gave me something else to concentrate on while bullets fired and pinged and people yelled.
Over the noise of the bullets and pinging metal, the rotors of the helicopter came roaring back.
There was a loud and intense increase in gunfire for a few minutes. Then things went eerily quiet. Thatcher and the other agent snuck around to the other side of the machinery, leaving me alone. I continued to hum.
A hand grabbed my arms from behind, and I screamed. Sergei cut the zip-tie between my hands, and I yanked them free, staring at him with wide eyes. Where was he going to take me next?
“Go,” he said.
“What?” I asked incredulously.
“Go find your boyfriend,” Sergei said and then disappeared around the big machine.
I slinked back down behind the metal, unwilling to move anywhere until Eddie or Thatcher assured me it was safe. But now with my hands free, I curled up into a ball, covering my face and head with my arms. I hummed. And I hummed some more.
A hand on my back startled me. It was Thatcher.
“Natalie,” she said. “Natalie, it’s okay. You can get up now.”
Slowly, I uncurled my body. “You got him? You got Sergei?”
She hung her head. “No. He seems to have gotten away, but we stabilized the scene. It’s okay to get up.”
I sat up and showed her my free hands. “Sergei cut me loose.”
Thatcher’s brow wrinkled. “Why? Did he say anything to you?”
“He told me to go find my boyfriend.” I looked around. “Where is Eddie?”
Again Thatcher’s head hung. “He seems to have fled, as well.”
“But he didn’t flee with Sergei,” I said. “Please, you have to believe me. Eddie wasn’t the one working with him it was Toby and—” I stared up at the building where Toby had been sitting. He wasn’t there. “Where’s Toby? You have to make him tell you—”
“Agent McCoy was taken away by Sergei’s men.”
I grabbed her arm. “He wasn’t taken—he went with them on purpose! I told you Toby was dirty! We have to find Eddie. He didn’t do anything, he needs our help and—”
Thatcher peeled my fingers from her. “I’m not here to discuss Agent Martinez with you, Miss Mancini. I’m here to take you away from the scene.”
“But…” my words drifted as my thoughts warped in confusion. Where was Eddie, and why had Sergei really let me go?
Thatcher wrapped an arm under mine, and helped me to my feet. Two ambulances had shown up while I had been humming in my own little mental world. Swirling lights and commotion were all around. A couple of police officers lay on the concrete with paramedics tending to them. Dead? I had no idea. An FBI agent sat on a gurney with his upper arm bandaged and bloodied.
The spot where Brandon had been lying was empty except for a small pool of blood, which smeared away the direction of the warehouse. He had crawled to safety. Of course, he had. Sergei’s bullets weren’t meant for him.
My head spun in every direction, looking for Eddie. No signs of his messy hair. Blood stained the concrete in random places, tightening my stomach with both queasiness and unease.
Thatcher led me to a black SUV. She opened the back door, but I didn’t get in.
“We need to find Eddie.”
“Get in, Miss Mancini.”
“What if he’s hurt or—”
Thatcher grabbed my upper arm and forced me inside the vehicle. An unknown agent drove me to a small office on the west side of town, and she didn’t speak the entire drive. No one gave me any answers at the FBI office either. But they asked me plenty of questions about my time in the suite, and my relationship with Eddie, and about my kidnapping. A debriefing they called it.
I was honest about my relationship with Eddie, telling them that we had indeed slept together. I mean, what the hell did it matter at that point? They thought he was a double agent working for Sergei Romanov. Screwing someone he was supposed to protect seemed pretty minor in comparison.
A nurse took my vitals and questioned me. Had I been physically harmed? Injected with anything? Sexually assaulted?
I was given the business card of the same psychologist to call for counseling appointments. I shoved it into my pocket, mentally making plans to tear it up. Talking to a stranger wasn't going to solve any of this. I needed to find Eddie and clear his name.
After the medical exam, I ended up shotgun next to Thatcher in a black Ford sedan.
“Eddie had nothing to do with Sergei,” I immediately said, even before we pulled out of the parking lot. “You have to believe me. It was Toby, he even pulled a gun on me in the van after they took me!”
“I will not speak to you about Agent Martinez or Agent McCoy. That is a matter for the FBI.”
“But Eddie’s missing! He needs help and he needs you to—”
“Enough, Miss Mancini.” Thatcher didn’t yell, but authority broke through her voice like none I had ever heard before. Not even my own dad.
I slumped back in my seat, arms crossed. Thatcher was going to be a hard one to crack, but I needed to get through to her. Maybe tons of phone calls to her office would get her annoyed enough that she’d finally tell me something useful. Because if Thatcher wasn’t going to help me find Eddie, I was damn-well prepared to look for him on my own. If only I had the vaguest idea of where he would be.
“Where are you taking me now?” I asked.
“Home.”
Home? It was the best and worst thing I could have heard.
“You mean home, as in back to my house with my dad and brother?” I asked, just to be sure I understood her correctly and wasn’t completely delusional. Sergei had been right about one thing, my brain felt fuzzy after hours in the sun.
“Yes.”
“Is it safe?”
“I wouldn’t be taking you there if I thought otherwise.”
“But Sergei is out there somewhere! What if he comes back for me?”
Thatcher didn’t respond to my question, and instead she changed the subject. “Your father has been told that Camp Coyote had a water main break and so all the campers and counselors have been sent home.”
“Okay, but he’s nosey. He’ll want to know about all it and maybe even speak to someone at the camp. And he’ll wonder about my pay, making sure that I get the money owed to me. How am I supposed to explain the lack of a paycheck?”
Thatcher took a business card from her pocket. It was a simple white card with a green CC on the left-hand side which stood for Camp Coyote, and on the right-hand side was the contact information for the head counselor, Tyler Wheeler.
“Is this real?” I asked.
“No. That phone number will connect your dad with one of our agents.”
“Who pretends to be Tyler Wheeler of Camp Coyote?”
“Exactly. And tomorrow you will have a paycheck deposited in your checking account.”
The FBI even has access to my checking account? I shook my head a bit. “So you’re paying me actual money? Do I get to keep it?”
“Yes and yes.” She smiled. “Also, your former manager, Angela, seemed more than happy to have a flirtatious conversation with your father about getting your job at the mall back.”
“My dad talked to Angela?”
“No, one of our agents did.”
“An FBI agent pretended to be my dad?”
“Only over the phone.”
“But still.” I grimaced. “And he flirted with Angela?”
“Apparently. Said she was a rather … giggly woman.”
Eww. Now Angela probably thoug
ht my dad liked her and would be bugging me about him nonstop. Gross. “So I have to go back to the mall and work?”
“You don’t have to,” Thatcher said. “I just figured it’d be best to get you back into a familiar routine.” She pulled up in front of my neighbor’s house and stared at our timber multilevel next door. “Here you are.”
She held out a familiar phone. My old, cracked phone that had been knocked out of my hand in the mall parking lot last week.
I took it. “You’ve had this all this time? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“We couldn’t risk you making contact with anyone while you were hiding from Sergei.”
I snorted. “As if I was hiding. He knew exactly where I was the whole time, remember? Because Toby told him.” I tried to turn the phone on, but nothing happened.
“It still works. It just needs to be charged.” Thatcher nodded to my house. “Go ahead and go home now.”
“So that’s seriously it? You keep me hidden away in a hotel room for over a week, but now I’m okay to go? Suddenly it’s safe for me to be out on my own?”
“We have people watching your house and—”
“It doesn’t make sense,” I said. “Sergei is still out there. Why did he let me go? You said yourself that no one survives to identify Sergei Romanov.”
Thatcher stared straight ahead and said nothing.
“You know why he let me go, don’t you?”
She began to shake his head, but I cut her off before she could say anything.
“What if he comes back? What if it’s not safe for me to be home, what if I—”
Thatcher twisted to look right at me, her eyes narrowed and stern. “Miss Mancini, you are to go home now. People will be watching your house. If we believed you to be in danger, I would not be here dropping you off. You have done a great service for us in identifying Sergei Romanov and your information will be a great addition to our investigation. But your service with us is now done. The FBI thanks you for your time and cooperation.”
My mouth dropped open at her callousness. She continued to stare at me with narrowed eyes as I unlatched the car door.
And like that I walked back into my normal life, feeling anything but normal.